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Barbara Corcoran: Get Off The La-Z-Boy And Go Buy!

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By Tom Acitelli

July 16, 2008 | 9:17 a.m.

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rnair via flickr.

Barbara Corcoran was on Larry King Live last night as part of a panel on the mortgage mess (transcript here). The founder of the Corcoran Group, now an author and TV personality, couldn't understand why more people weren't now buying homes and quickly:

I think you ought to be out there shopping the market now. You have three times more inventory. Prices have been reduced by over 15 percent in many markets, some markets 66 percent. And there's cheap money still. Why wouldn't you be shopping right now? I can't imagine why people are sitting at home in their La-Z-Boy chairs.

Barely a few minutes later, though, in response to a question about the origins of the mortgage crisis, Ms. Corcoran said somberly:

Over exuberance, over confidence, a lot of people pumping people up, making them feel if they didn't buy now, they were going to miss their chance at the American dream. Everybody participated. Everyone was greedy and everyone, sadly, is paying the price. But most of all, the people least deserving to pay the price, which are the people who are so hit hard and losing their homes, many of them unsuspecting and undeserving. It's a shame. I'm embarrassed by it. [emphasis ours]

Irony, anyone?