The excuse Blanche Evans, Realty Times Deceiver in Chief, gave for TCDL's lies are especially galling, blaming his distortions on his having a "sunny personality". For all I know TCDL is a nice sunny guy. But that doesn't excuse the lies and deception, and doesn't excuse the horrific mess he personally helped create. TCDL helped ruin lives folks. What TCDL did was evil.
And Miss Evans, a note for your reference, REAL economists don't lie, distort and deceive. They use theories and evidence to try to come to understandings and the truth.
FAKE economists, like whoever the NAR employs, are paid liars who manipulate data to fool the American people into thinking it's always a great time to pay a real estate clerk a commission.
Have you no shame?
Meanwhile, nice to see Reuters pick up on David at davidlereahwatch. I'm tellin' ya, the NAR and realtors around the country probably have "how can we silence the bubble blogs" meetings. And they know their days are up, because they can't.
WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - The economist who prodded investors into the U.S. housing boom and has been skewered by bloggers during the bust is leaving a top real estate trade association, the group said Monday.
Still, others excoriate the former bank regulator and economist with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for maintaining a rosy outlook on the home market even while the demand for homes has evaporated.
One blog, David Lereah Watch, cites passages from Lereah's books and his encouraging words about the housing market and asks him to "admit he cheerleaded this destructive housing bubble."
In October, Lereah said that he expected "sales activity to pick up early next year." In recent months, Lereah has pushed his expectations for recovery deeper into 2007 and has trimmed his forecast for home sales for the year
Blanche Evans, the editor of Realty Times, an online magazine for real estate professionals, said Lereah's outlook for the market is a reflection of his sunny disposition.
"That is part of his personality. He is one of the most bright and energetic people but that does not mean that he's a Pollyanna," said Evans, author of "Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money in ANY Real Estate Market."
And Miss Evans, a note for your reference, REAL economists don't lie, distort and deceive. They use theories and evidence to try to come to understandings and the truth.
FAKE economists, like whoever the NAR employs, are paid liars who manipulate data to fool the American people into thinking it's always a great time to pay a real estate clerk a commission.
Have you no shame?
Meanwhile, nice to see Reuters pick up on David at davidlereahwatch. I'm tellin' ya, the NAR and realtors around the country probably have "how can we silence the bubble blogs" meetings. And they know their days are up, because they can't.
WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - The economist who prodded investors into the U.S. housing boom and has been skewered by bloggers during the bust is leaving a top real estate trade association, the group said Monday.
Still, others excoriate the former bank regulator and economist with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for maintaining a rosy outlook on the home market even while the demand for homes has evaporated.
One blog, David Lereah Watch, cites passages from Lereah's books and his encouraging words about the housing market and asks him to "admit he cheerleaded this destructive housing bubble."
In October, Lereah said that he expected "sales activity to pick up early next year." In recent months, Lereah has pushed his expectations for recovery deeper into 2007 and has trimmed his forecast for home sales for the year
Blanche Evans, the editor of Realty Times, an online magazine for real estate professionals, said Lereah's outlook for the market is a reflection of his sunny disposition.
"That is part of his personality. He is one of the most bright and energetic people but that does not mean that he's a Pollyanna," said Evans, author of "Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money in ANY Real Estate Market."
19 comments:
Ah.
An unwinnable land war in Asia?
That's because of Dick "Darth" Cheney's shining happy people personality!
Are you against Mornings In America?
ps: It's now the Hello Kitty Global War on Terrorism
What's funny is that he could make tens of millions by coming clean and admitting that he was pressured by the NAR to keep up his "cheerleading." Between the book deal and all the radio and TV he'd get to promote it, he'd make a fortune. How about movie rights to tell the story of how one man ruined the lives of millions, under undue pressure from the NAR?
TCDL is sitting on a goldmine, and this is coming from an author who knows the business and how much publishers will pay him for the truth.
Maybe Learah can use his tongue to clean out a few public rest rooms...
TCDL is a motivational speaker - I get it. WTF - I just threw up in my mouth a little after reading that.
Glad to fight The Corrupt David Lereah! I proudly stand with you Keith in your fight against the REIC!
The bubble bloggers stand strong!
David
David Lereah Watch
Learah did too much smack in the '70s
Most Realtors have grown tired of TCDL as it has ruined what credibility they had, not to mention their long-term business. I have been to these "meetings" and believe me they are not happy. A bubble market is not a long-term healthy market. Realtors made some money in 2001-2004 but the commission structure collapsed in 2005 as most sales were either FSBO or paid low 2% commissions. Well the commissions are back up now, but there are no buyers so no closings.
TCDL didn't start this bubble, Greenspan and the dot com bust started the asset shift to real estate. But, he sure fed the fire long after it should have died out with the tacit backing of one of the most powerful political organizations in the country (NAR).
IMOHO it was the Main Stream Media that gave TCDL his credibility without questioning his motives or qualifications. As an aside note that the Home Builders of America economists (along with the CEOs..."2007 is going to suck.") have been relatively honest in their assessments of the market.
Disclosure: We buy really distressed properties in need of heavy construction or renovations (not your typical flips). With rising foreclosures business has never been better and likely will be for the next few years.
Thanks DL! ;)
Blanche shut the _ _ _ _ _ _ _!
Anyone think the class action lawyers will sue the NAR, MTG bankers and Building associations?
Colusion anyone?
Pollyf*ckinanna
Blanche Evans, when stories about the housing bubble started appearing in the press I believe she wrote an editorial claiming newspapers were conspiring against Real Estate Clerks.
Really strange stuff, a mind scrambling to lash out and somehow keep the huge commissions pouring in.
Someone posted a link to a presentation made by Lereah in 8-06 in the NARs Leadership Summit on the Mortgage Lender Meltdown forum today:
http://tinyurl.com/mefvp
The powerpoint slides from NAR shows Lereah and NAR clearly knew what was going on, but didn't tell everyone instead of spinning. I'm guessing the NAR didn't expect these charts and graphs to be made public....
Enjoy!
Why are prices in my neighborhood still going up since January? Mortgage payments are not double the rents in this area. The rents are above mortgage payments on a 30 year fixed, prime, 20% down rate, for a home I bought in February 2007.
Bought my first home for $18,500. Do not think this housing panic will wipe me out.
Good luck, some poor souls did not compare the cost of renting versus owning on the free online calculators one might find in google.
http://www.vlender.com/cgi-bin/calc/rent_vs_buy.cgi
Ah, the dangers of Prozac...., an overly optimistic outlook on things, ears, markets etc...
Thing is, Lereah doesn't even have a 'sunny' personality. Have you ever seen him in an interview? He's defensive, patronizing and argumentative. The guy is not only a pathalogical liar but he's a miserable pr$@k to boot.
Dildoe
Why are prices in my neighborhood still going up since January? Mortgage payments are not double the rents in this area. The rents are above mortgage payments on a 30 year fixed, prime, 20% down rate, for a home I bought in February 2007.
Where are you? Wait: you'd better not say, as you'll have plane-loads of specuvestors pouring into your town since they've already run up prices in most other areas.... Better to avoid a bubble than to deal with it's damage in the wake.
G-MAC, 'Sets Us Up' the Mortgage Bomb; $1 Billion Losses From One Firm This Quarter
May 3, 2007 (EIRNS)--Some investment banks' estimates of $20 billion in total losses in the mortgage-backed securities markets, were exposed as far too low; one major firm alone lost nearly $1 billion in just the first quarter of 2007.
The three top credit-rating agencies all downgraded their outlooks for Residential Capital (ResCap, part of General Motors Acceptance Corporation or GMAC) to ``negative,'' after the Bloomington, Minnesota mortgage company acknowledged its mortgage losses on May 2, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. ResCap lost $910 million, and is laying off 1,000 employees.
GMAC, which used to be the financial engine pulling up GM's auto operations, is now transformed by the mortgage collapse into a big money-loser, half-owned by GM and half by the huge Cerberus hedge fund.
Oh, an article from Bloomberg that shows that rents are dropping:
http://tinyurl.com/2rlsom
You have to love the elements of denial ("I don't want to sell for less than I paid", etc) in the article.
[i]May 2 (Bloomberg) -- The glut of U.S. properties for sale is about to hit the rental market.
A record number of homeowners who can't sell condominiums and houses are competing for tenants with the country's biggest apartment owners led by Chicago-based Equity Residential, said Jack McCabe, the founder of Deerfield Beach, Florida-based McCabe Research & Consulting LLC. Metropolitan New York, where demand for housing exceeds supply, may be the only place where rents increase, albeit at a slower pace, he said.
``Competition already is forcing the big apartment owners to offer concessions like two months free rent,'' McCabe said.
Vacant rental apartments rose to 6.1 percent in the U.S. during the first quarter, the most in almost two years, even as the average monthly rent reached a record $991, said Sam Chandan, chief economist of New York-based real estate research company Reis Inc. Vacancies will continue to rise through 2007, he said. New York had the lowest number of vacant units in the first quarter, according to Reis data.
Nationwide, 2.8 percent of houses for sale were unoccupied in the first quarter, the highest since the Census Department started collecting the data in 1956. Unsold properties on the market totaled a record 3.45 million in 2006, according to the Chicago- based National Association of Realtors.
``Unsold properties being turned into rental units are creating a shadow market that's driving up the vacancy rate and slowing the growth of rents,'' Chandan said in an interview. ``Areas that saw the most speculative investing, particularly in condos, will see the biggest pressure on rents.''
Reluctant Landlords
Anthony De Silva said he's not happy to become a landlord. He bought a two-bedroom condominium on the ocean in Hollywood, Florida, 18 months ago expecting to sell at a $100,000 profit. Instead, he's looking for tenants at $1,700 a month.
``I don't want to sell for less than I paid, so my only choice is to rent it,'' said De Silva, 45, a New Yorker who made $80,000 in November 2005 by flipping, or selling quickly, his first Florida real estate investment, a condominium in Fort Lauderdale. At the time, prices had gained 29 percent from a year earlier, the peak of the market in that area.
The increase in competition from landlords like De Silva is spurring apartment owners to offer enticements. Lincoln Green Apartments, a Philadelphia complex that rents units from $840 to $1,370 a month, is offering two months free rent for people who sign a one-year lease. Citrus Park Apartments in Tampa, Florida, and Ten Faxon in Quincy, Massachusetts, have the same deal.
Hidden Inventory
``Increasing vacancies does not bode well for rental incomes,'' said Nabil N. El-Hage, a professor at Harvard Business School in Boston, across the Charles River from Harvard University's main campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ``We've seen a softening in apartment REITs as a result.''
A Bloomberg index of 19 apartment-focused real estate investment trusts, or REITs, has fallen 14 percent over the last three months, the longest consecutive monthly decline since a three-month rout that ended February 2003.
Frustrated sellers who become landlords have created an inventory of for-sale properties that could derail a housing recovery next year, Chandan said. If home sales improve in early 2008, as predicted by Freddie Mac, the No. 2 mortgage buyer, properties now being rented could reappear in 12 months time to flood the spring market.
Prices Weak
``Those homes that are disappearing off the sales market can just as easily appear again when demand is stronger,'' he said.
U.S. real estate prices ``continued to weaken'' in many districts during March and April, the Federal Reserve said last week in its regional survey known as the Beige Book for the color of its cover. The report cited the San Francisco and Richmond, Virginia, markets as ``falling or soft.'' Sales declined in the Cleveland, Atlanta, Kansas City, and St. Paul, Minnesota regions, the Federal Reserve said.
The exception was New York, where homes were ``selling well,'' the Fed survey said. Manhattan's median apartment price rose 1.2 percent to $835,000 in the first quarter from a year earlier, said Jonathan Miller, president of New York residential appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. For all of the U.S., the median fell 2.1 percent to $212,300, according to Fannie Mae, the largest mortgage buyer.
`Further Stress'
The city's average rent was $2,605 a month in the first quarter, the highest in the nation, and the vacancy rate was the lowest, at 2.5 percent, according to Reis. Fairfield County, Connecticut, had a 3 percent vacancy rate, central New Jersey was 3.6 percent, and New York's Long Island was 3.9 percent, fueled by demand from New York commuters, said Chandan of Reis.
In markets such as South Florida, Nevada and Arizona that led the country in speculative buying, owners who can't rent their properties may default on their mortgages, Chandan said.
``A bigger supply of units for rent means fewer opportunities for speculative owners to cover their mortgage payments by renting,'' Chandan said. ``It has the potential of placing further stress on mortgage performance that has already deteriorated because of subprime defaults.''
Many houses that end up in foreclosure probably will be bought by investors who rent them until demand improves, adding to supply on the market, said Martin Cohen, co-chief executive officer of New York-based Cohen & Steers Inc., which oversees almost $34 billion.
More Rentals
The Center for Responsible Lending in Durham, North Carolina, said in a December study that as many as 2.2 million borrowers are at risk of losing their homes, at a potential cost of $164 billion, from subprime mortgages originated from 1998 through 2006.
``If you get foreclosures of homes, they're going to be homes for rent,'' said Cohen, whose firm holds 4.8 million shares of AvalonBay Communities Inc., a Washington-based real estate investment trust that owns 49,400 apartments. Shares of AvalonBay dropped 17 percent since February, after surging 47 percent in the prior 12 months.
Rachael Babinchak, a real estate agent, is trying to rent an investment property she bought for $224,000 last May in Phoenix, after home prices climbed 26 percent from a year earlier. Since then, demand has dropped because of a glut of for-sale properties and prices have ``softened,'' she said.
Babinchak is asking $1,100 a month for the two-bedroom house on the north side of the city, with a one-car garage, a pool and a hot tub. The average rent in Phoenix was $756 in the first quarter and the vacancy rate was 7 percent, exceeding the national average, according to Reis.
`Elevated Inventories'
``I didn't buy an investment property with the hopes of being a landlord, but I'm not going to get a good price right now,'' Babinchak said. As soon as the real estate market rebounds, she said she'll put the property back up for sale.
Demand to purchase real estate will begin to improve in the final quarter of 2007, the Mortgage Bankers Association said last week. Until then, home prices may decline 2 percent, the Washington group said on April 24. The average U.S. rate for a 30- year fixed mortgage probably will be 6.4 percent this year, matching the 2006 rate, the trade group said.
``Elevated inventories of unsold homes, especially those for vacant units, should put downward pressures on home prices,'' the report said.
Sales of existing homes, including condominiums and single- family houses, may fall to 5.55 million this year from 5.71 million in 2006, the National Association of Homebuilders said last week. Sales reached an all-time high of 6.18 million in 2005.
Housing Starts
Single-family housing starts will drop to 1.16 million this year, the lowest since 1.13 million in 1997, the Washington-based trade group said. Starts will rebound to 1.23 million next year, it said.
The drop in construction will help shave 1 percentage point off economic growth this year, the homebuilders said. The U.S. gross domestic product will expand 2.3 percent this year, slowing from 3.3 percent in 2006, the trade group said.
``The market is flooded with condominiums,'' said De Silva, who has yet to find a tenant for his 1,200-square-foot property in Florida.
The New Yorker left his Manhattan job in 2005 to become a full-time real estate investor, using equity from his condominium on the Upper West Side. He invested in two Florida properties, the one he sold for a profit and the one he now is trying to rent.
Hoping For Profit
De Silva signed a contract to buy the 11th floor unit at the Residences on Hollywood Beach from a developer in April 2005 for $400,000, expecting to sell it for $500,000 when the deal closed six months later. Trump Hollywood is going up next door, with 200 luxury condominiums in a 40-story building.
His apartment faces westward toward the Intracoastal Waterway and has a balcony with views of the sunset, De Silva said. The kitchen has grey granite countertops and maple cabinets.
He rented the unit for six months last year to help pay the mortgage and condominium fees that total about $1,700 a month.
``I didn't want to be a landlord, but I had to bite the bullet so I can afford to wait for a real estate recovery,'' said De Silva, who last week started a full-time job as a project manager for a construction firm, consulting with New York City on renovating school buildings.
``I'm hoping the good times for real estate will be back in next year's spring market,'' he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kathleen M. Howley in Boston at kmhowley@bloomberg.net [/i]
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