Talk:Real-estate bubble

wow, what an excellent article. Kudos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.190.185 (talk • contribs)

How to identify spam links

Someone added housepricecrash.co.uk to the external links section again. Is that spam or a legitimate site? How can you tell (besides the fact that it keeps getting added)? JHP 00:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

There is a section in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam called How to identify spam and spammers that I use as a standard for determining whether or not a link is spam. This particular link I removed because it matched the following critera from the list:

• 1. User is anonymous (an IP address)
• 2. User:page and/or User_talk:page are red links (it was until I added the spam1 tag)
• 3. No edit summary (other than, perhaps /* External links */)
• 4. User has made only one edit, which consisted of inserting a link
• 6. The majority of user's edits are to external links sections
• 7. The link is a site that has Google/Yahoo ads (AdSense/SM).
• 14. User adds links that have been previously removed, without discussing on the talk page.
• 20. Text of the link goes beyond describing the contents to actively encouraging you to read it. For example, including text such as, "Read more about [subject] in [this fascinating article]" (In this case the editor writes, "a good read")

This paticular link isn't too bad as far as ads go. And I do think they have some content (though I think most of their information is already covered in this Wikipedia article). But the fact that they are unwilling to sign up for an account and discuss the link's merits makes me question their intent. Monkeyman^(talk) 17:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

List of chronic spammers

There are several chronic external link spammers. Please remove them if you see them. Please be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water, however. The IMF, The Economist, and CEPR are all reputable and relevant sources. JHP 23:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The chronic spammers are:

• patrick.net
• housingpanic.blogspot.com
• housingbubbleresearch.com
• expertresearch.net

My UK perspective

Please dont take this the wrong way, Monkeyman.

Nice article, but I'm not sure that it is suffiently world rather than US orientated, as most of the various ratios I've never heard of before (despite being involved in housing in the UK for a great many years) and I therefore expect they are in use in the US only - indeed at least one of them only links to USA statistics.

I have added two ratios used in the UK: the rental yield and the Affordability Index. The Affordability Index is published by the Nationwide Building Society and Rowntrees, and when I've got time I will search out these links and add them.

I wrote a dissertation for a master's degree that included evaluating the income/price ratio, and the Building Societys Association (or was it the Council For Mortgage Lenders - cannot remember) economist criticised it by saying it took no account of the actual cost of the mortgage payments (which in the UK usually vary with interest rates), and I agree with him. However it does fluctuate more than the Affordability Index, and thus it helps to add drama and sensation to journalists and book-writers accounts.

Shouldnt the ratios be moved to their own article, Property ratios?

No offence, but I would not have thought that the pop books from the "Rich Dad Poor Dad" author were worth adding to the bibliography, and I have read them.

I've recently read a book about Bubbles by an American banker that includes discussion of UK and US housing bubbles, and when I've found out the name and author will add it.

A seperate comment about rental yields: statistics of these are difficult to get hold of, and it would be great if people would add links to various sites where they can be obtained online.

Thanks. --81.104.12.19 18:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggested source

Calverley, John P., Bubbles and how to survive them, N. Brealey, 2004 ISBN 1857883489

Books in Reference that ought to be deleted

These books, which I have read, have got either nothing or so very little I didnt notice it about housing bubbles, and I think they ought to be deleted:

Robert Kiyosaki (2000). Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money—That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!, New York: Warner Business Books. ISBN 0446677450. Burton R. Malkiel (2004). A Random Walk Down Wall Street, 8th ed., New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. ISBN 0393325350 John Allen Paulos (2003). A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market, New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465054811.

There may be other books which I have not read which also ought to be removed.

Why no links to news sites?

Hi, why is it unacceptable to link to news sites that maintain daily lists of relevant articles? I noticed a large number of links to blogs and other sites under the United States housing bubble topic, but it looks like there are different rules for this page...?

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.107.76.132 (talk • contribs) 2006-07-23 18:31:31 UTC (UTC)

I reverted the site you added because it was just a list of links, and it appeared that you were were trying to promote the site and its ads rather than to improve the article. In general it's better to add content rather than links to articles; see WP:EL.

The fact one article has links to blogs is not a good reason for adding them to another article. By that argument, as long as there is even one linkspam on Wikipedia, it is OK to add more. Links to blogs are generally discouraged unless they offer especially informative or relevant content, so I removed many of the blog links from the article you mentioned. Wmahan. 04:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)