Realtors' bullish housing outlook questioned

Nice to see the mainstream press catching up with the bloggers in calling a spade a spade.. especially since one of the #1 advertisers in newspapers is the real estate industrial complex - builders, realtors, lenders, etc... Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

But between the National Association of Realtors, and also local Realtors themselves, what a bunch of corrupt, and biased, wrong-headed and at the end of the day evil people. To knowingly spread lies, while leading the uneducated masses to sure financial ruin, is evil. How do they sleep at night?

When real estate agents try to sell a home, they often zero in on the positives -- big closets, great space for entertaining, lots of potential to expand.

It's the same tactic that the trade group representing many home sales agents, the National Association of Realtors, appears to be using right now: It asserts in a new report that a healthy housing market is here to stay and prices aren't likely to decline.

But that sounds awfully upbeat given recent data showing that home-builder sentiment has plunged and that price inflation in certain markets, including California and Florida, has started to slow. At the same time, inventories are up, mortgage applications are down and real-estate lending, particularly home-equity loans, remains soft.