January 30, 2007

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Why did the mainstream media in general miss the housing bubble?

And why do they continue to embarrass themselves by publishing unchecked the Commerce Department and National Association of Realtors bogus monthly numbers and "we've hit bottom" proclamations?

Incompetence?
REIC Advertising?
Corruption?
Laziness?

I sense a change recently, with Rolodex-of-Realtors Catherine Reagor at the Arizona Republic publishing that killer cash-back mortgage fraud expose. But still 99% of what's out there is rip-and-read NAR-endorsed crap. We've got a long way to go.

A long way.

22 comments:

blogger said...

Check out this dolt's article in England today folks. What do you want to bet he owns real estate in London...

matthewlynn@bloomberg.net

http://tinyurl.com/ysyynq

Mad London House Prices? We've Seen Nothing Yet: Matthew Lynn

By Matthew Lynn

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- After a year of huge price increases for London homes, you would think the market had gone crazy.

You haven't seen anything yet.

London is just following the rest of U.K. real estate. Don't be surprised if the capital's fevered property market doubles in value before this boom runs out of steam.

A broom closet valued at 170,000 pounds may seem like crazy money -- and it probably is. There is still no reason that it shouldn't cost you 300,000 pounds in three years' time.

Anonymous said...

Why? Because reporters stopped reporting long ago and just take press releases and report them as news

Anonymous said...

Guess Senator Dodd plans on holding nearings to bailout (at taxpayers expense) the homebuyers and loaners,one could almost puke if it happens.

Anonymous said...

Countrywide misses earnings and says 2007 will be disaster (yet predicts 2008 recovery)

Looking ahead to 2007, the industry will likely see continued pressure on margins as mortgage origination volumes decline and industry capacity is rationalized. We are also preparing for increased borrower delinquencies and continued credit deterioration. We believe, however, that 2007 will likely be the trough year of the current housing cycle and that 2008 should represent the beginning of upward trends associated with the next cycle. As we have said in the past, it is our view that the most relevant way to measure performance and growth in our industry and in our business is to view performance from business cycle to business cycle rather than year over year. This is how Countrywide manages its franchise and we are well positioned and extremely optimistic about our prospects to continue generating growth and superior returns over future cycles."

Anonymous said...

what does that have to do with clark kent?

Anonymous said...

Hey, Clark Kent is one of the best reporters alive. I read his column daily!

Anonymous said...

Why? Because the alternative would be quoting blogs like this that among other things predict $25 a gallon gas and $1500 gold.

In other words your choice as a reporter is quoting liars or crazy people. Personally I'd go with the liars too.

Anonymous said...

RE ads pay the bills.

Anonymous said...

Stupid liberal trash are begging the DemoRats for a homedebtor bailout and it is coming this way already

http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/fraud/

Anonymous said...

The mainstream media is made up of brainless liberal twits at the NY Slimes, LA Slimes and whores like Katie Couric who cater to their audience of left-wing morons who are more interested in gay shepherds and Puff Daddy than financial matters.

Anonymous said...

Keith,

I am beginning to believe that the housing crash is becoming a battle between the bloggers and the broadcast/print media. As we all know the bloggers (such as yourself) saw this thing coming and have been right all along. Whereas, the broadcast/print media has been denying and reporting misleading statistics.

This is turning out to be more than a housing crash!!!

Anonymous said...

"Guess Senator Dodd plans on holding nearings to bailout (at taxpayers expense) the homebuyers and loaners,one could almost puke if it happens"

I wouldn't count on this. Does the US Gov have enough money to bail out all of the FB's to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars? If so, what will that do to the money supply, to the dollar, to the banking system itself? You've heard the term "too big to fail" as its applied to institutions like Ford or Fannie Mae. The housing market is too big to save as it dwarfs anything in the economy many times over (except maybe derivatives - hahaha.) No, the Gov has no choice but to just let it die on its own, although snippets like the one above make good press for the Senator.

Anonymous said...

"Countrywide misses earnings and says 2007 will be disaster (yet predicts 2008 recovery)"

Yeah this is more of the stuff Fleckenstein was talking about in his last piece. Basically, a company misses and in order to avoid a stock rout, they simply guide higher later in the year or in 2008. Because the analysts aren't doing their jobs, these companies can get away with this gimmick. Its not just limited to financial companies either. Texas Instruments just did basically the same thing and said "we missed but the back half of 2007 is going to be great" while offering no proof or logical substantiation whatsoever. They just "felt" like the end of 2007 was going to be good. Pathetic.

Anonymous said...

Why? People don't want to hear the truth and they don't demand it. Every piece of information we get in MSM seems to be manufactured and this has been going on for several years now. MSM isn't lazy, the people who are consuming it are lazy.

Also, factual information, truth, and objectivity just isn't very profitable, it's all about $$$. Face it, news of a HP is a downer and bad for business. If people started saving money instead of spending it, it would have devestating effects on the economy.

Anonymous said...

KEIF,

You have one hell of an ego dude. Do you really think anyone takes you seriously outside of your little cabal here?

Ask 100 random people on the street if they read blogs. If 5 say yes I'd be very surprised. If 40 even know what a blog is I'd be surprised too.

Sure the 16 year old myspace crowd is all abuzz with blog fever as are the unemployed and others with nothing to do all day but surf the web. But they're not buying homes. The people buying homes are at work during the day and taking care of their kids at night.

Bring that sense of importanc down just a little bit.

Anonymous said...

your take on the MSM is a little off. Google "housing market" and you'll get plenty of MSM stories that tell your side of the story.

Anonymous said...

Didn't this guy die by "internal decapitation?"

Kind of like this bubble is going to die, too.

Uncertain Buyer said...

Keith gets about 5000 Visitors/day and around 9000 page views/day. That's a lot of traffic.

If you are comparing that to the total population of N.America it isn't a lot.

Anonymous said...

YTD:
Gold: up 1%
D R Horton: up 6.8%

6 Months:
Gold: up less than 1%
D R Horton: up 25%

Keep talking pinheads. The more you yammer on about a housing collapse the more money I make.

Anonymous said...

"YTD:
Gold: up 1%
D R Horton: up 6.8%

6 Months:
Gold: up less than 1%
D R Horton: up 25%

Keep talking pinheads. The more you yammer on about a housing collapse the more money I make."

Yes because you always sell high and buy low. DHI down 25% in 1yr and 6% in 2yrs. I know you sold it at its 42 high and bought it back at 20. But its always great when a greater than 50% decline followed by a 25% rise still results in a 33% decline. Welcome to secular bear markets.

Gold, OTOH, while down about 10% from its high is still up 13% 1yr and 52% in 2yrs.

Which is in a bull market, Homebuilders or Gold?

Anonymous said...

Keith gets about 5000 Visitors/day and around 9000 page views/day. That's a lot of traffic. If you are comparing that to the total population of N.America it isn't a lot.

5000 a day? That's nothing. And I'll bet that not unique visitors either. I know I come here 2 or 3 times a day and I'm sure I'm not the only one who visits multiple times using different IP addresses (home/work/etc).

Anonymous said...

Which is in a bull market, Homebuilders or Gold?

By that nonsensical logic the housing market is the place to be since it is up 100% over 5 years. Buying Gold at $650 makes as much sense as buying a condo in San Diego for $800,000.

You keep buying your gold. I'll keep buying DHI, we'll see where we are at the end of Feb.