Interesting editorial choices at Money Magazine

Usually working my way through the print edition at a leisurely pace throughout the month, it came as somewhat of a surprise to see the collection of stories in the back of the May issue of Money Magazine - "Scenes from a bubble".

Here's the online version (links to the stories are just below the graphic):

• The buyers: The Quams and the too-good-to-be-true mortgage
• The brokers: Would you get your mortgage from this man?
• The appraisers: Price estimates made to order
• The investors: How to get rich trading "idiot" loans

What's interesting is that the staff spent a fair amount of time in researching and writing these four stories, but chose to minimize their importance in both the print and online versions of the magazine by not only relegating them to the back, but by providing relatively fewer and smaller photos and graphics.

Here's the online table of contents that goes along with the "REAL ESTATE NOW" cover with the lead story "TRADE UP: Why It's Time to Make Your Move". The lead story happens to be the first story below "Buyer's Market", featuring the happy young family pictured below and gracing the magazine's cover.


The group of four "bubble" stories is circled above - after the requisite real estate/stock comparison and lengthy home renovation section containing pages and pages of glossy, full page photos.

One of the reasons that this issue was not reviewed more quickly and more carefully here was a result of a quick read of the lead story - tales of how buyers are scoring big by negotiating lower prices now that the tide had turned and home buyers have the upper hand over sellers.

"We don't often have a buyer's market like we have now," says Ned Marrs, a longtime broker in Colorado Springs. "Every decade it happens for a year if we're lucky. Then it's a seller's market for another nine years."

Gene Trinks, 35, moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 2002, but the engineer couldn't bring himself to buy a house in that frenzied atmosphere. "People were just overbidding wildly," he says. "There was a danger of paying too much without regard for what a house is really worth."

In January, though, he and his girlfriend closed on a four-bedroom home in Oakland, paying $880,000 for a house originally listed at $979,000.

"We were the only offer, we bid below ask, and they accepted without any counters, which is a great position to be in as a buyer," says Trinks. "We could be a little bit more in control of the process."

Broker Ned in Colorado Springs surely has his numbers wrong (one year in ten? in Colorado?) and having been an engineer not more than a couple months ago, the chances that Gene and his family have overextended themselves with what appears to be a first-time home purchase at $880,000 (in Oakland?) loom large.

Their victory dance may also be premature as $980,000 homes that turn into $880,000 homes just might have a way of turning into $780,000 homes (or worse).

Having now gotten past what really appears to be a "fluff" piece with families grinning from ear to ear, the stories in the back, with much smaller photos where chagrins have replaced smiles, will now be studied carefully.

These are interesting, though not surprising, editorial choices at Money Magazine.