Figuring the National Association of Realtors multi-million dollar advertising buy was a complete and total failure, the NAHB put out their own "study" saying that people don't rely on the "media" when making decisions on whether or not to buy a home.
Yeah, right.
With home sales cratering, in some cases 40%, 50% or more, with NAHB poster boys on their way to jail for insider stock swindles, and with massive layoffs and bankruptcies within the NAHB membership, I'd suggest a different tact. One that's not seen in the REIC and should be.
It's called honesty.
People around the US are now laughing at the REIC. You're witnessing the destruction of the "realtor" profession. Greedy and corrupt homebuilders like Bob Toll are the new Bernie Ebbers, Ken Lays or Dennis Kozlowskis. And millions of Americans are now financially ruined, thanks in part to the NAHB and NAR.
Here's their attempt at spin. Makes you wonder, with $1.9 Trillion or 16% of the entire US GDP relying on the real estate business, why they've not come after HP and yours truly, in addition to the other bubble bloggers. I guess that proves that stupid corrupt greedy rich business guys have no idea what's really going on out there on "the google" or "the internets". Or reality.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The nation's prospective homebuyers may derive some of their information on the housing market from the news media, but at the end of the day the things that matter far more when they are deciding whether to make a purchase include the price of the newhome, mortgage interest rates and their housing needs, according to a new nationwide survey commissioned by NAHB.
"While the majority of the households we polled indicated that they found the media a reliable source of information on the housing market,what they read in the newspaper, saw on television or heard on the radio was no substitute for actually going out and shopping the market," said Thomas Riehle, a partner in RT Strategies, which conducted the research for NAHB.
November 28, 2006
Desperate and discredited National Association of Homebuilders gives spin a shot
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
20 comments:
No mention of the internet in that final paragraph. They wouldn't want a prospective buyer stumbling upon the truth now would they? Typical. Watch the Realtwhores® fight over commissions next year, great fun!
Home builders are trying to determine how many suckers are left to buy the overpriced houses they can't afford. And they are doing it in the media!!!
Pulte Homes said its third-quarter earnings fell 52% from a year ago as the U.S. housing market continued its decline, forcing the homebuilder to write down $87.7 million of land inventory and options.
On its earnings call Thursday, Pulte Chief Executive Richard Dugas told investors that there isn't yet a bottom in the real estate market.
That's gotta suck for Pulte. Of course all the other builders are probably in much better shape (snickers). I'm getting all conflicted, do we have a bottom or not? NOT!! Article here.
Never send a Realtwhore® to do a real whore's job. You can do this. Bwahaha!!
I don't think the NAHB has ever seen a bubble blog
They don't know what hit 'em
I don't know. I think things are schizophrenic. One day optimism, the next pessimism, over-all I think people are subconciously fearful. Wages have been stagnant for five years while profits have soared.
Austin is an odd city. I haven't quite figured it out after seven months of living here. They don't seem to be as consumption oriented (at least in the south of the city) but I assume that is because of high property taxes which take a lot of money out of circulation for consumption. Thrift stores here seem to do a bustling business. I see a lack of retail stores and malls, but don't spend much time out in Round Rock which seems to be the consumption capital of the area.
In my area homes sell slowly and have for five years. Our subdivision is almost built out and the builders intially raised prices significantly to offset price decreases in other markets but now are lowering prices. One house on my street has been completed for three months and has been lowered 5%. One builder is throwing up less expensive models to unload the last of their lots, which is unfortunate because they are some of their better and more expensive lots to start with. They've reduced the size of the homes between 600-1000 sq ft, reduced the quality of building materials (choice of stone, brick, increased use of siding) so those spec homes are listed $100,000 lower on average than the higher quality homes that have been built.
Some areas remain hot, others cold, and I just can't figure out this market. Phoenix was a lot easier to figure out.
I believe the Fed will be pressured to do something in 2007 to stimulate growth as the economy has contracted and cooled a lot faster than predicted by those "in the know."
Add to the title of this blog, "Desperate American workers" as home values were the only thing along with the obscene extension of credit that made most feel like they were not loosing ground. This seems to be the first decade were we are not better off than our parents.
That doesn't mean the upper 20% haven't prospered but the remaining 80% I fear are about to see their lives get even more bleak.
Who is this Borksmybitch-He cracks me up, keep up the good work.
"Makes you wonder, why they've not come after HP and yours truly?"
Too bad they didn't give you $1 million to just go away, like Google did to www.f@ckedgoogle.com!
beta sux rox.
Live At Your Own Risk
By David Moberg
For three decades, the gap between the rich and everyone else has grown in the United States. At the same time, working people have faced greater economic uncertainty, their incomes have fluctuated more dramatically, and both employers and governments have cut back on measures such as pensions and health insurance that helped mitigate the uncertainties of life. Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker calls this the great risk shift—transferring the burden of risks in life from collective institutions to individuals.
Hacker observes that “Social Security, Medicare, private health insurance, traditional guaranteed pensions—all sent the same reassuring message: someone is watching out for you, all of us are watching out for you, when things go bad. Today, the message is starkly different: You are on your own.”
The greatest victims of this shift are the poor, and the biggest beneficiaries are the rich. However, in The Great Risk Shift, Hacker uses statistics and illuminating anecdotes to show how the shift also threatens the “middle class.”
Many of the same changes in the economy increase both inequality and risk. However increased individual exposure to economic uncertainty raises slightly different political questions. It endangers and often wreaks real hardship on many who thought their lives were secure.
url;
http://tinyurl.com/ymrdgp
I would draw some very different conclusions from the NAHB survey.
Price. The article identifies price as the single most important factor for homebuyers. They also state that declining prices are a good thing for homebuyers. Declining prices might be good for homebuyers but they are not a good thing for home-owners. And if you become a homebuyer you have a very good chance of becoming a home-owner - it's almost a dead certainty. So why would you buy a home now if you can get it at a significant discount in a month or 2?
I also think there are a lot of delusional homebuyers taking part in this survey - they all believe themselves to be far more independent in their thinking than they actually are. Homebuyers claim that they are not influenced by the MSM but claim that prices and the potential of the home to appreciate in value are important factors - so where did they get their information if not from the MSM and REIC? Either they obtained information from the MSM or the REIC or they just relied on their purely anecdotal experience - all sources which are perfectly useless and unreliable.
I think many homebuyers remember spin, marketing, advertising and rhetoric. But because they don't remember where they heard something they believe what they remember. They start to think they 'just know' something and that they aren't just the victims of effective marketing. This is how mass advertising and marketing often works, am I not right, Keith?
Stupid people think they are smart when they are in possession of information, however small, skewed and just plain wrong it may be. Case in point: Greg Swann.
Another corrupt builder here in Boise...Corey Barton Homes.
They are currently offering six months without a mortgage.
A friend recently bought a Corey Barton Home. In order to get that deal, you have to use their lendor, Country Wide...and Corey Barton Homes gets a 10% kickback.
People who in the past couldn't qualify for a new car loan are all of a sudden able to borrow hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of dollars. This has to be invigorating and flattering on some level. Anyone with decent credit who buys at inflated prices is a fool. You are competing against straw buyers and speculators with nothing to lose. As long as the easy credit spigot is turned wide open this will continue. Hopefully the lenders and stockholders of aforementioned lenders will lose many billion$ without a public bailout. If there is a bailout I plan to become a burden to society myself. Good luck everyone, you're going to need it going forward.
"While the majority of the households we polled indicated that they found the media a reliable source of information on the housing market,what they read in the newspaper, saw on television or heard on the radio was no substitute for actually going out and shopping the market," said Thomas Riehle, a partner in RT Strategies, which conducted the research for NAHB.
--------
ya THEN they realize how f-ed up it is!!
3.5% drop? That's not much.
Oh no? At that rate, in 10 months your house will be worth 35% less.
Oh, and that 3.5 is bigger than the previous month drop so it's accelerating.
You know what "accelerating" means don't you?
Just do the math.
Down 3.5% plus say another 5% incentives = 8.5% drop. Add in 8% selling fees = 16.5% drop.
$500,000 condo you bought to flip, $0 down, no-doc loan, drops 16.5%. You're down $82,000 in a year. I doubt that same person would have put $82,000 in the stock market if he could have lost it all in a year without being able to hit the sell button. In fact, I doubt that person has $82,000.
That person is now well on the way to bankruptcy.
Paul Math 12:57:02 AM wrote:
“Declining prices might be good for homebuyers but they are not a good thing for home-owners.”
--------------------------
While this wasn’t the main point of your post, it is just another blanket HP statement that provokes the following questions:
(1) Why aren’t declining prices good for homeowners who keep their homes?
(2) Why aren’t declining prices good for homeowners needing some justification for getting their property taxes lowered?
Thanks,
Mammoth
Keith said, "Makes you wonder, with $1.9 Trillion or 16% of the entire US GDP relying on the real estate business, why they've not come after HP and yours truly, in addition to the other bubble bloggers."
Wow, early signs of meglamania?
You really think you and HP and other house bloggers are that powerful or that great an impact on the market?
Even if you can see the signs, the market itself is the power. And if the entire real estate market came to a halt (which we all know even during the great depression it didn't) a loss of 16% GDP is the end of the world?
Still, to think that anyone would be interested in coming for you because you write a blog is the height of arrogance. You are not that important Keith! If Ted Haggert could fall from grace as leader of a 20,000 strong church with no impact I hardly think the end of HP would cause a ripple in the US let alone the Global economy.
Test
Regarding the "Guaranteed Appreciation Mortgage", in November I attended one of the info sessions Harbor Lights are offering. The builder presented the guaranteed appreciation mortgage. Seems pretty real. He said flat out he will guarantee appreciation. Their marketing states buy for less than renting. They achieve this by providing you a line of credit on top of a conventional mortgage to offset the monthly payment. The example given was a $550k 2 bed unit with a monthly payment of $1100/month in the first year. Doesn't seem possible, however they explained how they arrived at $1100 / month. Seems like hell of a deal. Of course, after five years you have to pay back the line of credit. At that point, if the property is not worth more than the conventional mort + the line of credit, then they forgive what you are in the hole.
Post a Comment