National Association of Realtors Not so Accurate…
27 02 2008
The National Association of Realtors reported this morning that sales of existing homes dropped to the lowest level in nine years to a rate of 4.8 million annually. The Commerce Department is also on tap to release the figure for new home sales for January which is also expected to fall.
With all this news clearly pointing to a weakened market you would expect NAR to be realistic when talking about housing. However NAR does not think that a housing slump is going on at all, and that the market is strong. The folks over at BubbleMeter have pointed out that NAR doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to accuracy about what’s going on in the housing market. Specifically singling out Lawence Yun the Chief Economist who really doesn’t have the best track record. Back in 2005 Yun said …
“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. “
We all know that didn’t happen! Prices in the area have actually declined. So what school of thought are you guys in? How do you think the market has been doing lately?
It’s in the interest of NAR to keep people thinking that “right now is the time to buy and sell” which is a problem because all signs are pointing to doing the opposite and waiting for the market to stabilize.
Housing prices are falling, in my book that means the market is not doing well at all!
It’s so wrong what they do. I fell for it and bought a way overpriced condo that I now can’t afford to close on. Woohoo!
DC will be stagnate to micro appreciations of less than 1% per year for the next 3-4 years. Surrounding jurisdictions down 5-10% for the next 2-3 years. Some extremely at risk neighborhoods down I-95, Fairfax and PG county will see pockets of 30-40% total decline over the next 3 years.