I had coffee with my friend Steve last week, and we got to talking real estate.  He has a little place in the Fenway, and basically went through a few years ago what I'm going through now to get it.  He's the one, if I recall, who first urged me to take the city's Homebuying 101 course.  I'm glad I did, although, as I've said, I came away thinking it'll be another couple years before I'm ready to take the plunge.

But the great thing about buying a house is that everyone who's ever done it has an opinion about it, and they can bang on about their experience forever.  Conversations can get very animated.  But it's not like politics.  With real estate, people more or less know when they've been had, and they learn from their mistakes. 

I was reading Frank Rich on Sarah Palin and palmgate in the Tmes this morning, and he's all like:

That Republican leaders can pass off deceptive faux-populism as“pitch-perfect populism” is in part a testament to the blinding intensity of the economic anger and anxiety roiling the country. 

But really it's just the same ol' same ol'.  Crazy is crazy.  If they weren't bashing Obama they'd be barking at the moon. To lend the Teabaggers any credence at all is a trap.  It's like legitimizing Hezbollah. But here they've even got Marvel Comics apologizing to them now. 

Just ignore them.  They won't go away.  There aren't enough loony bins to hold them.  But at least you don't get swept up in their antics.  It's like creationists and Holocaust deniers.  You're not going to win an argument with a baboon.  And you're likely to get your face eaten off if you try.  And you'd deserve it.  The thing to do is to ostracize and isolate them and let them go at each other, which eventually they will. 

I'll be the first to admit that stupidity, like pornography, is always a compelling spectacle.  But sometimes, as with, say, scat — and Palin and the Teabaggers are masters of political scat sports — it's better to look away so as not to be implicated in the spectacle yourself.

As for porn, real estate is at least as titillating, at times comical, and, of course, size matters at least as much. 

And occasionally you get a gem.  There's a cute little place for sale today in the Fenway.  I'm sure it'll get snatched right up.  534 square feet for $319,000.  It's a steal.  But if you're worried about being able to afford it, the ad adds: "window treatments negotiable."  Seriously. 

Um, here are the "window treatments" in question:


I'll pass.  You can go ahead and knock the $12.98 off the asking price.  Let's make a deal!

People are crazy.

Tell you the truth, I'm not even that bummed that Boston is back to being a seller's market again.  I'll bide my time.  I can't do anything about the market, any more than I can do anything about the weather.

But an upturn could mean my landlady will want to offload my apartment sooner than later.  My lease is up at the end of August, and I want to be prepared, so I've been perusing the rental listings again. 

Rentals are more like softcore porn. 

People do get creative, though, don't they?  "1 BR Studios" with "Semi modern" kitchens, and such.  If Palin ever wants to get into real estate, I think Boston would be the market for her.