“We have had five consecutive record years, and you can't sustain that forever,” David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said at the New England Realtors Conference held in Boston yesterday. “2006 is a year to catch our breath.”
Lereah said predictions reported by some economists that a real estate bubble is on the verge of bursting are misleading.
“It's more like a balloon that inflates and deflates,” he said. “The air is coming out of the balloon, but the bubble is not bursting.”
Lereah said most local housing markets are healthy, though home sales in 2006 will likely not be as strong as in recent years. But sales could bounce back in 2007 and for the rest of the decade. ( Lowell Sun 3/21/06)
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Lereah At New England Realtors Conference
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Lereah was probaly working at McDonalds when the real estate market and economy tanked in New England from 1989-1993- housing did not reach bottom till 1996-over 7 years after the peak. I lived through that period-people got burned here badly.
ReplyDeleteBoston and Providence are two of the most overpriced markets here- however Portland Me, southern New Hampshire and Springfield Mass are overpriced by greater then 15%. Here in Connecticut New Haven county is about 10% over valued (median SFH price around 265K)
Hartford metro is about 6% overvalued (median SFH price 249K). Here is an interesting perspective- during the last housing bubble which peaked in 1988-median price peaked at 170K for A SFH- so the median price now is 48% higher over the peak in 1988- but thats an 18 year time frame-if you take out the down years from 1989-1996- and the double digit gains of the last 4 years- it averages out to a gain per year from 1988-2006 of about 2.7% which is just about right- we reverted to the mean- which is good. Those highly inflated areas-I wonder if they will ever revert to the mean? Scary. In Connecticut I left out toney Fairfield county-which is geographically according to the NAR -part of the NY Housing market.
I love his backpedling. And what about his book?
ReplyDeleteMore lies from Liereah...
ReplyDeletewww.novabubble.blogspot.com
Lereah said, Lereah said predictions reported by some economists that a real estate bubble is on the verge of bursting are misleading.
ReplyDelete“It's more like a balloon that inflates and deflates,” he said. “The air is coming out of the balloon, but the bubble is not bursting.”
Have you ever let the air out of a ballon? It can deflate real fast once the air is let out. Try it.
If Lereah read a bit more maybe he would know a verbal distinction brought to my attention by Terry Pratchett -
ReplyDeleteRewording Lereah in Pratchett-ese, homeowners are not about to get creamed, they're about to get cheeesed[*].
[*] just like getting creamed, but takes and lasts a lot longer.