Mr. Yun's September 2005 Prediction is Way Off

Mr. Yun is not an 'outstanding forecaster' his forecasts have been way off the mark. In September 2005 Yun predicted "The chance of a housing price decline in the DC area is close to zero, in my view. I anticipate that prices in DC will outpace the national average price growth. DC prices will rise at close to a 7 to 10 % rate of appreciation. "

As we know prices have declined in the DC area since Yun's wrong prediction. According to the S&P Case Shiller Index, since September 2005 DC area prices have fallen 6.3%.

Do not trust Lawrence 'paid spinner' Yun. The general public and media need to be aware of his spins, predictions that have proven wrong, and his contradictory statements. Mr Yun is a paid shill who has lost his credibility.

Lereah's Book. Haha

Hattip to John Fountain for alerting me to this.

Making Fun of Countrywide's Mozillo

Yout Tube on HousingPanic

Lance from September 2006

Lance's comment from Septemeber 2006:

"The window of opportunity for those who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting to purchase is quickly slipping away, however I suspect most bubbleheads will miss it. I just hope they are on here a year from now explaining why they are still "waiting it out." The justifications will be interesting to hear." ( Comment at September 25, 2006 7:52 AM)

Case Shiller Index Way Down; Washington, DC Area Down 6.5% YoY

Bloomberg News reported that "U.S. home prices fell 4.5 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the sharpest drop since Standard & Poor began its nationwide housing index in 1987, the research group said Tuesday. "

"S&P also reported that prices fell 1.7 percent from the previous quarter, the largest consecutive quarterly decline in the index's history. The S&P/Case-Schiller quarterly index tracks prices of existing single-family homes across the nation compared with a year earlier. "

"A separate index that covers 20 U.S. metropolitan areas dropped 4.9 percent in September from a year earlier. A 10-area index decreased 5.5 percent from the previous year."

MarketWatch adds "Home prices fell in September in all 20 major cities covered by the Case-Shiller price index, even in cities that had been holding up, Standard & Poor's reported.

In the Washington, DC area the price index fell 6.5% from September 2006 . Prices continue to fall in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. In real dollars prices this is almost 10%. For more numbers go to Case Shiller S&P Index.

Greenspan's Recent Statements on Housing & Asset Bubble

Reuters reports: "Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Friday that U.S. house prices have not bottomed out after a crisis in the subprime mortgage market.

“The markets are becoming aware that the decline in U.S. housing prices is not stopping. It is at an unprecedented pace compared to the last 50 years,” Greenspan told a financial audience in the Norwegian capital.

"He said the housing bubble had burst and the market was “a good deal away” from its selling climax — a point at which sellers ultimately lower their prices to match lower bids.

He said central banks should concentrate on alleviating the economic fallout from burst asset bubbles because they had few methods to prevent them and “lean against the wind.”

“There doesn’t seem to me that there is very much evidence that we can do much about them,” said Greenspan, who oversaw Fed policy during the dot-com bubble and the start of the present housing bubble.

“Irrespective if we could identify them, we could not do much to defuse them,” he said of asset bubbles.

Greenspan could have pulled a Volcker (raise interest rates tremendously) which would pop the housing bubble. Not that I would support that. In retrospect, Mr. Greenspan allowed interest rates to be too low, for too long.

Negative Sales in Las Vegas by Toll Brothers

In Las Vegas ,Toll Brothers is not reducing prices on its luxury housing units. It stubbornly clings on to very high prices:

And despite total traffic through models of between 500 and 600 people weekly, Toll Bros., a luxury builder that also hasn't marketed any discounts, had zero net sales in the week ended Nov. 11 and a negative net-sales rate of two homes in the week ended Oct. 14.

That means the company, whose homes are priced from $345,975 to more than $1 million, had two more cancellations in Las Vegas that it had sales.

Toll officials declined to discuss local sales volume, noting that they release regional data only quarterly. Spokeswoman Kira McCarron said sales of new homes and standing inventory "are consistent with current marketing conditions." (Las Vegas Review - Journal 11/25/07)

These Toll Brother fools out in Las Vegas better get the widely circulated memo that deep price reductions in price are necessary to move new housing units.

HapppyThanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! :-)

Lereah's Book in 2005

Google Trends: "Foreclosure" in California

Graph of the number of times the word "foreclosure" was googled from California over the last year. As one can tell it has about doubled in the past year.