David Lereah Says "They Were Wrong Too!"
David Lereah, the fully discredited, former chief economist of the National Association of Realtors shot back at the housing bears who in his mind were also wrong.
“Even the people that were talking about booms busting, my goodness they were talking about it in 2001 and 2002,” said David Lereah, the former chief economist with the National Association of Realtors. “And they were wrong for four years and they only became right at the end of 2004.” He and his former employer had been criticized for the optimistic forecasts they made during the boom. (NYTimes. September 23rd)Sure, some of the bears predicted the boom would end much sooner then it did. But, it is also true that many of the bears correctly pointed out that in 2003 some housing markets were already in a a bubble. Just because the bubble continued to grow, does not negate the reality that certain housing markets were already bubblicious.
posted by David @ 11:13 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Interesting thread. I am a real estate broker, (15 years) and thought real estate was too high in 2002, but told my buyers they needed to make their own decisions. In 2004 I was amazed at the even higher valuations, and again warned clients they were possibly going to be "the greater fool". Hyperinflation is always a possibilty with M3 no longer being accounted for, but I sold my personal residence in july of 2005, and pocketed a lot of cash tax free. I currently rent, waiting for a deeper correction. I love real estate and it's many benefits, but timing is everything. Lereah has given some of us in the profession a bad name.
http://www.wizardzofwealth.com/blog/discuss/personal-finance/
My wife and I currently reside in Fort Lauderdale, FL - after having moved here from Dallas, TX and Cincinnati, OH before that - it's safe to say real estate values here are slightly higher than we're used to seeing. We are currently renting as well and waiting out the correction. I work for a hard money lender and have written a few posts about the market as a whole, and real estate values. Safe to say I don't think the correction is going to be short lived - both a supply sides (too many home on the market from too many sources - investors, builders, foreclosures...) and too few $$'s to borrow for the average consumer with the current credit cruch (MortgageImplode.com has 160+ lenders out of the biz currently). Then there's the talk of dissallowing the mortgage interest tax credit, don't get me started on that...
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