June 20, 2012
Scottsdale, AZ – As anyone who has attempted to buy or sell a home over the past seven years can attest, the Real Estate market has proven unstable at best. New findings released by the Phoenix-based American Behavioral Coalition this morning may explain why.
“The Scottsdale Real Estate Market suffers from Schizoaffective Disorder,” Dr. Angela Merkins of the ABC claims.
You mean it’s mental?
“Well, it suffers from a personality disorder anyway,” Dr. Merkins affirmed. “Comparing the peaks and valleys of the past decade to the market’s baseline history, we can only conclude that an acute trauma, brought on by a specific event, caused a psychotic break with consciousness that has yet to be fully repaired.”
Dr. Merkins expanded when pressed on the nature of said event.
“Could have been anything,” Dr. Merkins explained. “A chance encounter with a cash-poor investor triggering a suppressed memory from the 1980s, an episode of delusional paranoia spurred by an influx of Californian speculators, who knows? All that is clear is that the Scottsdale Real Estate Market went bugshit crazy on February 14th, 2005.”
From high-rolling night-owl that snorts Alka Seltzer off the bare stomachs of $5000 a night showgirls, to indigent transient that smells of four day old cat food and sour milk, the Scottsdale Real Estate Market has seen more ups and downs in recent years than a Mount Everest sherpa. Until recently, the market had been under the care and supervision of the mental health staff at ABC, but its current whereabouts are unknown after budget cutbacks mandated its transfer to a less secure facility.
“I’m worried about it,” Dr. Merkins confirmed, acknowledging that the patient, disguised as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, recently checked itself out of a halfway house. “After a long period of clinical depression, the market was finally coming around. But now, all that progress hangs in the balance.”
This is often the most dangerous point for a psychiatric patient.
“The concern is that the patient will feel the medication and therapy that has brought him or her back to a point of normalcy is no longer necessary, especially if the pull to experience the rush of a manic phase is too strong to resist. They think they can just go back on their medication once they’ve experienced the exhilaration of the high and avoid the low, but it doesn’t work like that.”
Asked if she saw any particular danger of that occurring in this instance, Dr. Merkins was blunt.
“Look at what’s going on out there,” she lamented. “Multiple offers, bidding wars, pictures on the internet of the market passed out at a frat party with a lampshade on its head … the only thing missing is stated income financing for jobless meth addicts.”
When asked if she had had any communications with her former patient, Dr. Merkins blushed.
“It left me a message at two AM this morning,” Dr. Merkins confessed, holding up her cell phone as evidence. “Mostly slurred speech to the point of being incomprehensible, but I distinctly heard the phrase Colombian bath salts.”
So what does this mean for Scottsdale home buyers and sellers?
“Buckle up and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times,” Dr. Merkins cautioned. “And don’t take any open beverages from a stranger. Trust me on this.”
– Paul Slaybaugh, BSRE News ©2012
