Take What "They Say" with a Grain of Salt

I love this story. Three years ago, the Mortgage Bankers Association announced plans to buy a new, $90 million headquarters building in Washington, D.C. According to Jonathan Kempner, then president and CEO of the Association, "...we have come to the inescapable conclusion that owning our own building was the smartest long term investment for the Association." The Association moved into its new headquarters in June 2008.

On February 5th, 2010 - less than two years after moving in - the MBA sold their building to CoStar Group for $41 million. In so doing, they effectively acknowledged a colossal investment blunder. Plenty of people overpaid for real estate during the boom. But the MBA was supposedly a group of financial experts, who had access to a wealth of intelligence about the real estate market. That's why I cringe whenever someone begins a sentence with the phrase, "They say..."