Lawence "spinner in chief' Yun is at it again. He is busy spinning large declines in the National Association of Realtors' index of July pending sales of existing homes.
The National Association of Realtors said its seasonally adjusted index of pending home sales for July fell 16.1 percent from a year ago and 12.2 percent from the prior month.
Lawrence Yun, the Realtors trade group's senior economist, called the problems "temporary," and related to jumbo home loans above $417,000 ..(AP Business 9/5/07)"
The depression was also temporary. The housing market in many parts of the US is undergoing large price declines, falling construction starts and lousy sales. The housing market is not ready to 'bottom out' or 'stabilize.' There will be many more years of this housing bust. Mr. "Spinner in chief' Yun is a paid shill who cannot be trusted.
David Lereah has admitted he was wrong. Can't You?
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And when is this "bubble" finally going to burst? We're still waiting ...
ReplyDeleteSo, why do you say he spinned it? He stated the facts, which aren't pretty.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteWhat have your pay increases been like over the past two years? Are you still working at the same place downtown?
These are legitimate questions since they influence your perspective on the economy.
Longtime reader.
NAR has to get out of the prediction business.
ReplyDeleteI recently linked my blog to your comments on David admitting he was wrong.
Why can't NAR just talk about the joys of owning a home, why do they have to focus on getting rich quick (or even slowly)
Frank- VA Broker
Blog.FranklyRealty.com
Dave,
ReplyDeleteI love that Youtube clip. If your forget the past, you are doomed to repeat it.
A nearby neighborhood is going for $150k below 2005 prices, but sales rates are really slow. One coworker has decided to start bidding, but at $100k to $150k below asking and only on well prices properties.
Sadly, where I want to buy is only down a tiny amount. However with the credit crunch in jumbo mortgages, its doomed.
Funny thing is that most of the employment loss has been 1099's, so they were missed by the employment report.
No more employee relocations at my work until December. We'll see a few thousand moved during the Winter school break.
I love the quote saying this slowdown was confined to March 2007. Yea... Bottom won't be until 2010 at the earliest. The number of coworkers who own five or more negative cash flow properties is funny and sad.
What amazes me the most is the huge number of McMansions and Mansions being flipped in this bubble. But that is its own thread. I assume everyone read that report on the HBB on areas of Virginia having an issue where multiple-families are buying McMansions together. Oh... that will trash the neighborhood...
Got popcorn?
Neil
Two Days Apart, Two Reports Tell Two Stories About Prices
ReplyDeleteBy Kenneth R. Harney
Saturday, September 8, 2007; Page F01
How worried should homeowners or sellers be? Looking at two nationally quoted measures of house values, you might be perplexed.
At the end of August, Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller national home price index reported that prices fell by 3.2 percent from the second quarter of 2006 to the corresponding period this year. Declines in property values in some metropolitan areas were much more severe -- 11 percent in Detroit, 7.7 percent in Tampa, 7.3 percent in San Diego, 7 percent in Washington, 4 percent in San Francisco and 3.7 percent in Boston.
scope.
Bottom line: Don't overreact when you see big drops -- or jumps -- in these indexes. They are measuring different things, and no national index gets down to the nitty-gritty: what's happening to property values in your Zip code, micromarket or neighborhood.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090701163.html
Real estate agents advised to limit listings to serious sellers
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pe.com/business/
local/stories/PE_Biz_D_appleton-young07.33453a8.html
Sales dropped a whopping 50 percent in August in LA. Kiddies, can you say "the sky is falling"? Click on my name to read the article at the LA Business Journal.
ReplyDeleteThe era of spin
ReplyDeletedare I say I am tired of both political parties in this countries.
Both offer nothing. Except giving the wealthy all- and the rest crumbs.
"Why can't NAR just talk about the joys of owning a home, why do they have to focus on getting rich quick (or even slowly"
ReplyDeletePeople are quite capable of figuring out the benefits of owning a home without the dubious assistance of NAR.
If NAR really wanted to provide a service, it should (1) cease efforts to limit public disclosure of sale transactions, (2) stop freezing out discount brokers (including lobbying efforts for bogus "minimum service rules"), (3)require suspension of brokerage firms that misuse the MLS (e.g. relists as new sales), and (4)publicly retract Yun's 2005 report to the FTC, in which he made material misstatements of fact.
That would be a start.
"Sales dropped a whopping 50 percent in August in LA. Kiddies, can you say "the sky is falling"? Click on my name to read the article at the LA Business Journal."
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty typical of August.
For those of you who keep saying this crash isn't happening in the "good" neighborhoods, I have a wonderful example for you. 1707 N. Edison St, Arlington VA 22207, was bought for $698k 1-31-06, then bought by the bank in a foreclosure for $693,439 5-7-07 and is now listed for $499k (originally listed 3-29-07 for $629k). That's a $200,000 price drop folks, in North Arlington. I think we can expect more of the same in the years to come.
ReplyDeleteLance said:
ReplyDeleteAnd when is this "bubble" finally going to burst? We're still waiting ...
We're seeing it very strongly locally. Home prices for identical homes are down at least $120 in less than a year. :)
As you know Lance, we expect the downturn to last another three or more years. Real estate collapses are very slow. But look at the jobs. Its here.
At work my wife heard of a home that had dropped from $780k to $550k. A colleague was still looking at it, but decided to wait.
Nothing wrong with waiting. A home is a HUGE investment. If I bought today it would cost me $30k/year more after taxes. Ok, with the
Got popcorn?
Neil
That's pretty typical of August.
ReplyDeleteNo, no, no, no. You obviously didn't read the article.
Sales in August 2007 where half the level of August 2006.
We're not talking about a seasonal decline here. We're talking about a collapsing market.
In August 2006, 8,246 houses sold. A year later, in August 2007, only 4,107 sold.
That's more than a 50 percent annual decline.
In related news, a survey released this week found that a third of home purchase closings were canceled in August because loan approvals fell through. Click on my name to read that entire story.
"Sales dropped a whopping 50 percent in August in LA. Kiddies, can you say "the sky is falling"? Click on my name to read the article at the LA Business Journal."
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty typical of August.
WRONG!
August sales in LA are typically 6 to 8% stronger than July. Not to mention that was a 50% drop from August 2006. We had a 25% drop from July 2007 to August 2007.
The 50% drop YOY is scary. Many commercial real estate sites are opening up (closed mortgage brokerages and RE sales ofices). My calculations show that this puts LA inventory at over 11 months. That is Florida like inventory which will trigger Florida like price crashes. Now, I'm working with preliminary data... But still, that breaks through the historical correlation of greater than 8.7 months of inventory creates rapid price drops. Not to mention August is the end of California's strong selling season...
And when LA goes... the whole nation will quake. Think of all the jumbo loans people will walk away from. This is, unfortunately, going to make the S&L crisis look tiny.
Got popcorn?
Neil
You know it is really the opposite of what Mr. Yun is saying. The jumbo loans, expecially the high end housing starts are thriving, and notice that the only large condo developments still charging ahead in DC are the ones selling units for over the million range.
ReplyDeleteThis is effecting the smaller home loans most and to think otherwise is just a joke!
www.dcmetrocentric.com
James
Well, looks like Dakota Crossing in Washington, D.C. if having a $77,000 sale on its townhomes. Received this in my email today...
ReplyDeleteWashington, D.C.
Lot # 934:
3 Bedrooms, 2 Full Baths, 2 Half Baths
WAS: $546,351 IS: $469,000
DAKOTA CROSSING
Luxury 2-car Garage Townhomes in
Northeast Washington.
Glad I'm waiting. I almost bought here at full price last year.
Responding the the North Arlington comment:
ReplyDelete1) It is still North Arlington, a NoVa suburb. Close in -- kinda. But not DuPont or Georgetown.
2) This sounds like a bogus appraisal & loan more than a price decline. The property probably had a loan on it substantially more than it was worth. Don't know for sure, but if the bubble were really bursting, we see evey house taking a 200K plunge. Not a single property.
I'd chalk it up to the loose lending standards (read: fraud) that fueled the current downturn in housing.
And as for me -- I own. I just re-did my walkway and steps into the front of my rowhouse. It looks good. Feels good as well, bubble or not.
This blog was interesting, for a time. But now I see the same post again and again. Every single economic indicator or piece of news is interpreted to show that the sky is falling, and real estate prices are plummeting. I wish that was the case. The fact remains that the D.C. area, particularly D.C. itself, is full of affluent people including lawyers, government contractors, etc. who can afford to buy homes at the prices they are listed for. If you're waiting for the sky to fall, you're going to wait a long time. The D.C. economy remains strong. Are prices really going to continue fall in D.C., or are they just stagnating? Oh, and can you quit using the tagline "got popcorn?" It's interesting to watch the subprime mess and its attendant problems, but it does seriously affect some people (just not enough people to make much of a difference in the D.C. market).
ReplyDelete"now listed for $499k (originally listed 3-29-07 for $629k). That's a $200,000 price drop folks, in North Arlington. "
ReplyDeleteNo. Not unless it closes at that price. A below market listing price is an old realtor's trick to start a bidding war.
A gutsy trick would to list that place for $1,000. That would get it front page coverage and probably a sale in the $700K range when the dust settles.
Prices in DC go up, the BubbleMeter blog dies. It was bound to happen.
ReplyDeleteAlan Greenspan in Fortune
ReplyDeleteBy Andy Serwer, Fortune managing editor
September 17 2007: 8:38 AM EDT
http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/16/magazines/fortune/greenspan_fortune_interview.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007091708
What's going on in the capital markets and the housing sector? Could you explain it to us, please?
This was an accident waiting to happen. If it weren't subprime, it would have been something else. We have been through this type of event innumerable times over the centuries. We get to a state of extraordinary exuberance which, when confronted with reality, turns to unrelenting fear, huge withdrawals, extraordinarily little liquidity, and considerable credit fears.
We know where it's going. We just don't know the actual, specific resolution. We have never had the capacity to defuse a bubble, and I suspect the reason is that until we essentially reach the climax of euphoria, the speculative fever doesn't break. But when it does, it turns on a dime.
Responding to this comment:
ReplyDeleteResponding the the North Arlington comment:
1) It is still North Arlington, a NoVa suburb. Close in -- kinda. But not DuPont or Georgetown.
-It is the closest NOVA suburb, with excellent PUBLIC schools. I would never consider buying in the district with 2 children...
2) This sounds like a bogus appraisal & loan more than a price decline. The property probably had a loan on it substantially more than it was worth. Don't know for sure, but if the bubble were really bursting, we see evey house taking a 200K plunge. Not a single property.
I'd chalk it up to the loose lending standards (read: fraud) that fueled the current downturn in housing.
-The fact is that prices in this zip code went up 120-150% in the past 5 years. This house is a POS, and in no way is even worth $500k, let alone the $700K it went for, but that's what people were willing to pay. Incidentally, the Arlington county tax assessment on this property for 2007 was $548,300, and the housing prices in 22207 are typically $150K to $200K above the real estate assessment. Most houses in this neighborhood, despite looking like crap, typically go in the high $600s and up. I don't think you can say this was a fraudulent appraisal, unless you think EVERY single house sold in the washington area in 2005 and 2006 involved a fraudulent appraisal. Maybe you do.
Responding to North Arlington II:
ReplyDeleteYour preference about where you would like to live has no relevance in the debate. It was merely stated that Arlington is more suburban than downtown DC; thus, more likely to suffer a systemtic downturn. You can find excellent schools in the District -- but most of those are not run by the city. And to continue to stay off point myself -- keep talking on your cell phone while driving your SUV and going to Costco in Arlington, not DC. Thanks.
And if someone is willing to pay any price for a house -- then that is what it is worth. That is the definition of "market." I think you disproved your own point by stating that house that "look like crap" routinely go for high prices. Weren't you arguning there was a bubble? If the bubble were bursting, then every house value would be plummeting -- not just this one.
Gee,
ReplyDeleteDoes this lance guy have a job?
In every bubble blog I read he is a regular poster. Needless to say, one to be ignored and laughed at.
Yeah Lance, besides this one you probably need a few more jobs to support your negative cash flow property, or maybe foreclose will give you a quick end to the pain.
'cause you will be on the defend side all the way to 2010 and beyond. Just take a look at what certain areas like Bay area and Los Angeles gone through in the 1990 recession. Sorry, I mean we are not in a recession yet, and therefore, prices are not falling, right? Didn't NAR tell us that for more than a year? Oh and home prices never go down unless we are in a recession? Well then, that only means more pain for you in the coming recession.