What the last buyer paid

A two-bedroom flat in a compound in New Cairo, not yet built, is for sale. Why would someone pay the asking price for it?

Sometimes because they expect to sell it on next year for more. But more often for a simpler reason. The flat next door, the same size and the same bare concrete, sold last month for nearly as much. The price is not really an opinion about the flat. It is a report on the last buyer.

The same thing happens with a used car, a plot of land on the north coast, a special number plate, a watch that has quietly become hard to find. Something is worth what the last person paid, and the next person pays a little more because the last person did. The higher the number climbs, the more it looks like proof that it was right.

None of this feels foolish while it is happening. Every buyer is correct on the day they buy, because on that day somebody else agreed with them. The person who hesitated looks timid. The person who paid looks shrewd.

And the market really is clever, about one thing. It is very good at telling you what people are willing to pay this afternoon, given what everyone else paid this morning.

What it knows nothing special about is later. When the compound is finished, or not. When the road arrives, or does not. When the people who bought only to sell all try to sell in the same season.

The market has spoken, people say, and it has. It just only ever speaks about today.