If a corporation cooks the books, the CEO and CFO can go to jail. If the NAR is cooking the books, there's no oversight, and no penalty. And you know the last thing the NAR will admit to is that the housing market is blowing up.
Having them report home sales is like having Katherin Harris report Florida vote totals. There's a fox in the henhouse.
Keep that in mind when you see a hilarious number like today's. For the wonks among you, the suspect methodology the NAR uses to get to this number is equally hilarious
You can smell a rat just by looking at the falling mortgage application number. I guess the NAR buyers are paying cash, right? Right?
Sales of existing homes edged up in March following a strong rebound in February, according to the National Association of Realtors(r).
Total existing-home sales -- including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops -- rose 0.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate (see note 1) of 6.92 million units in March from a pace of 6.90 million in February, but were 0.7 percent below a 6.97 million-unit level in March 2005.
Total housing inventory levels rose 7.0 percent at the end of March to 3.19 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 5.5-month supply at the current sales pace.
David Lereah, NAR's chief economist, said sales are leveling-out. "It's a good sign to see home sales holding close to the level of a strong rebound in the month before," he said. "This is additional evidence that we're experiencing a soft landing. We may see some minor slowing in home sales as interest rates rise, but the market clearly is stabilizing." Lereah expects 2006 to be the third strongest year on record for home sales.
April 25, 2006
With a straight face, NAR says existing home sales grew 0.3% in March
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35 comments:
Soft landing? The plane has crashed into the mountain, inventory is exploding everyone, they should just start bulldozing all those crapboxes on the 10 freeway in Phoenix because no one is ever going to live in them.
Its no wonder RE agents are more corrupt than used car salesman.
Ah Keith,
You blathering moron. Do you have any proof that Katherine Harris fudged the vote totals? Even your hero Jayson Blair of the New York Slimes couldn't report that Gore won.
Your stupidity never ceases to amaze me. Since you claim that Bush's friendship with the Saudis is making oil prices go up, should we now become their enemies so that oil prices will go down?
On the other hand, you claim that oil prices are high because we are enemies with the Iranians.
So which is it? Are oil prices high because we are friends with oil producing countries? Is it high because we are enemies with oil producing countries?
Make up your little mind.
Consumer Confidence Highest in 4 Years
AP - Consumers shrugged off higher gasoline prices in April and sent a widely watched barometer of consumer confidence to its highest level in almost four years, a private research group said Tuesday.
WTF KINDA DRUGS ARE THESE POLLING SLOBS ON????
anon #1 .. or is it Bush fan #1 ?
Its not the firendship or enemies that are making gas prices high .. its those moron's driving around in their gas guzzlers .. hiking up US demand for gas ..
what do you drive ?
Soft landing used in the context of the article is equivalent to this:
"We don't know where the hell the market is going but we sure as hell hope it doesn't bust"
Remember the soft landing of 2000? Those too stupid to remember and learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
When is the next FED meeting to decide for another FED RATE HIKE... imho ... due to Inflationary pressures to prime Commodities brought by high fuel prices ??????
anon with the katherine harris issue - my issue is not the vote total. my issue is the fox in the henhouse issue
the chairman of any candidate's campaign should not be in charge of certifying the vote total of any election. period.
just like the realtor trade organization should not be relied upon to put out any trusted data
good god if republicans and democrats would put down the koolaid one day and think for themselves, we'd be much better off
"existing" corrected - my oversight.
jeeze!
It's true the NAR reports on housing market are a bit like Exxon reports on global warming. However, there could be an upward blip for several reasons:
1. Spring buying and increased sales pressure--there are hundreds of thousands of Realtors(TM) with little to do.
2. Speculators who liquidated in coastal markets last fall and are plowing some of the profits into a greater number of properties in less bubbly markets. It's possible that some leaving CA or MA with 400K in profits went to buy two cheap homes in Texahoma for cash, though investors are unlikely to play with their own money.
3. Some of the demand that had been pent up by lack of inventory and sellers who wouldn't negotiate is probably now being met because of increased choices and sellers who will negotiate. Consumer sentiment is high because the job market is relatively strong now.
boom_bust
I'm no Bush fan but I'm not a raving left-wing lunatic who blames all the world's problems on Bush as if we were living in utopia before. It is only idiots like you and Keith who thought that the dotcom bubble was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Anyway I know I use alot less gas than you because I live 5 minutes from work. Unless you walk to work, then STFU.
I bet you complain about fuel prices and dependency on foreign oil, but you oppose drilling for oil here. Am I right?
"anon with the katherine harris issue - my issue is not the vote total. my issue is the fox in the henhouse issue"
Every state elects a secretary of state who is in charge of elections. If you complain about her, then you should complain about the other 49. They are all foxes in the henhouse. If they were hired by the governor (in this case Jeb Bush) you would still be complaining.
The best way to bring oil prices down is to become enemies with Saudi Arabia and don't drill for oil anywhere in the USA.
I complain about all states that allow the person who certifies the vote to be the director of a candidate's campaign
The system is corrupt. This is NOT a democrat or republican issue
I know many of you see everything through partisan eyes. Wake up. Other HP readers get it too though - it's called thinking for yourself, vs. being told what to think
Looking at the actual data:
http://www.realtor.org/Research.nsf/files/REL0603EHS.pdf/$FILE/REL0603EHS.pdf
You can see that prices are 7.4% higher than last year. Last year in march, median price was 203k this year it was 218k.
Last year April's median price was 214k. So there was a 5%+ gain from march to april last year.
We will see the same gain next month, though probably less than 5%. Next month the NAR will be happy to tell us that housing prices are up a strong 3% over the previous month, but they will ignore the fact that the increase in housing prices slowed again from 7.4% in the march YOY period to 4% in the april YOY period.
May will be a harder comparison. We will see flat to negative year over year comparisons on the national level by june or july.
Keith: you can muddle with this part of the report's URL: REL0603EHS.pdf to get older months' data - try 0511. It would be interesting to see a graph of year over year % increase by month.
Ya ok and according to this article consumer spending is at a 4 year high.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060425
/ap_on_bi_ge/economy
funny thing is everyone I talk to @ work or out and about say they are struggling to make ends meet.
Sitting at the bar the other night and that is all everyone was talking about the price of this the price of that...so can someone please tell me where this 4 year high is located, must be plenty of jobs there...oh and if this is not a ploy to raise interest rates I dont know what is.
Oh and anonymous you are a classic troll in your own right, you can consider that your new nick..TROLL!
Proof, once again, that there is no crisis or tragedy that Bush cannot turn into profits and/or undo laws to benefit his corporate buddies:
9/11 = basis for "The War for Daddy" and a way to overcome his AWOL status for re-election
Forest Fires = Send in the logging companies to get rid of the culprit, Old Growth Forests
Prescription drugs coming from Canada = a new Medicare plan to benefit the pharmaceutical companies
Katrina = photo ops with black people and a repeal of Davis-Bacon Act
War with Terrorists = spy on Americans
War in General = Direct profits
This President is all about his own pocket book and damn the people who stand in his way.
Jesus told Bush that he needed to be rich and being a good Christian he will fulfill his duty.
broke fingernail = Bush's fault
catch a cold = Bush's fault
couldn't flip condo = bush's fault
dotcom bubble pops = Bush's fault
got AIDS = Bush's fault
Osama told DemoRats to go forth and spread his propaganda and the Rats will fulfill their duty
brainless leftard - thanks for making my point about idiots who see everything through partisan eyes
you're part of the problem today. be part of the solution.
I bet you complain about fuel prices and dependency on foreign oil, but you oppose drilling for oil here. Am I right?
No, Yes, Yes
We don't have a supply problem. We have a demand problem. Too many people in Suburban & Urban Vehicles who think they look cool. Make 'em pay.
Don't worry, looking at April's numbers since the month is over essentially, the price of housing has "officially" fallen. I guess if you want to here the bubble pop, you just did. What is it with April and May that stink so bad?
April and May are supposedly some of the stronger months of the year for housing since people are coming out of their winter slumber and want to spend $$.
I predicted YOY price growth would be negative by June so we shall see....
Liberal NeoLib child molesting trolls,
Your finances were fine in 2000 because of that wonderful dotcom bubble that your child molesting president created. It was all paper wealth and tons of fiber optics cables being laid down and never used. It was billions worth of computers and servers being bought by dotbomb companies that never made a dime. They wer eliving on borrowed time just like these housing specualtors. Those were dotcom speculators. Get it through that thick stupid skull. AMZN stock was never really worth $500/shr and fuzzysocks.com was not worth more than Microsoft and IBM combined. If you were too stupid to sell out of your stock and mutual fund positions back then, it's your fault. If someone was too stupid to dump their flips last year, then too bad for them. You want to invest but you don't want to take any of the risks associated. When your investments go up then you're a genius. When it goes down then it's somebody else's fault. Typical stupid left-wing white trash.
It was all paper wealth just like today, you dimwitted leftard pipesmockers
"We don't have a supply problem. We have a demand problem. Too many people in Suburban & Urban Vehicles who think they look cool. Make 'em pay."
How?? How do you make them pay??
BTW, as a REALTOR myself, I'm surprised anyone looks into what the NAR has to report. If the NAR is as dumb and misleading as you say, why does it matter what they report??
NAR's numbers aren't that big of deal. That they tried to spin a month's worth of data is embarrasing however. Sorry bubs, nothing in that data showed a "soft landing", your about ready to go negative bub. Deal with that reality and accept the consenquences.
entertained realtor - thanks for posting.
the reason we give the nar numbers play is that the mainstream media reports them as solid hard fact.
it's the bloggers responsibility to question a biased industry group's biased survey, which they report on a press release in the best possible light to assure potential homebuyers that all is well
welcome to housingpanic
nice to see sean hannity posting as brainless left freak
boy, you can hear the intelligence oozing from his posts
so sad.
oops! I forgot I wasn't supposed to feed the trolls. never again!
As Keith and his brainless followers say:
dotcom bubble = good
housing bubble = bad
baaaaah
I bought Yahoo at $200/shr and then it went to $350/shr then it crashed. It's all Bush's fault. I was RICH!!!
Anonymous said...
"...
1. Spring buying and increased sales pressure--there are hundreds of thousands of Realtors(TM) with little to do."
I have this vision of middle aged women with poufy hair and wearing bad suits, acting like bored teenagers. Tagging the overpasses with NAR data. Pushing over the free real esate magazine boxes. Driving their leased BMWs in drag races against other agents. Be afraid, people.
"We may see some minor slowing in home sales as interest rates rise, but the market clearly is stabilizing."
sorry...but I couldn't help burst out laughing when I read this quote
I think he probably has convinced himself this is acutally the case
DENIAL is the new national pasttime in America. Well, we need to be really good at something!
existing homes sales match the chart.
Last numbers for existing home sales reflect Febuary homes that are closed with 30 days. Or January mortgage applications.
for those of you tired of the conspiracy theories. click on my name for some fundemental advise.
whooaa! prices crash 6% March vs. February as inventory skyrockets- same story, same data.
I love realtor posts. So easy to bitch slap.
damn - I fed another troll. it's addicting!
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