August 09, 2007

Right on schedule and proving they're run by monkeys, the NAR lowers their home sales projection again

Seriously, the NAR's monthly lowering of their forecast is comical. In all my days I've never seen an advocacy group do such damage to the very group they were advocating. Proving our point though - realtors are not very bright people.


Note to the NAR: You're completely discredited, and a national joke. In regards to your forecast, instead of looking dumb every month, month after month, just look dumb once and come out with a forecast you can stand behind.

And I guess "bouncing along the bottom" stock-dumper Bob Toll just found out that there is no bottom... Here's the latest:

Toll Brothers Reports Sales Decline; Trade Group Lowers Forecast

The luxury home builder Toll Brothers reported a 21 percent decline in preliminary home building revenue for the third quarter and said the housing market was so volatile that it would not give earnings guidance.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors, a trade group for real estate agents, lowered its outlook for existing-home sales this year by 1 percent, or 70,000 homes.

Robert I. Toll, Toll Brothers’ usually ebullient chief executive, remained cautious. “With the uncertainties roiling the mortgage markets right now, the pace of home sales could slow further until the credit markets settle down,” he said.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Underestimated" will be the word of the decade.

In many respects.

Anonymous said...

I do find the economic forecasts that the NAR publishes to be very useful...
... in any one of the five bathrooms in my home!

Anonymous said...

.
.
.
.
.
.
they remind me of the bruce willis movie sixth sence
these people are so stupid--that they dont even know they are stupid
.
they are just so stupid--sales and prices fall month over month
and they make it worse by always adding more negagtive news readjusting there outlook
thus making twice as bad
do these people even know that ramen has to be boiled
or do they chew on it making a mess

Anonymous said...

Stupid is as stupid does - Forest Gump

Anonymous said...

DOPES!

Anonymous said...

DOPES?!?

BNP Paribas just blew one. Somebody get the troll some goggles & a bib to go with the beach towel because TODAY IS GOING TO BE FULL OF BLOWBACK.

Bill said...

The real Greenspan

http://www.oftwominds.com/photos07
/fedbot1.jpg

Anonymous said...

PLANET OF THE APES!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I got this e-mail at work from a Home Mortgage Consultant from "Wells Fargo Home Mortgage". Perhaps eating Ramen every day is getting to her? (Note that we quickly take any customer off our e-mailing list upon request...and we only e-mail to previous customers):

The emails I receive from you all, only take up space in my email inbox and block other emails from being received. This is my BUSINESS EMAIL.

REMOVE ME FROM YOUR LIST IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

As a member of NAR and a RE Broker, I just keep asking myself what is the problem with telling it like it is.

Prices are falling, demand is low. Now you gotta work harder.
I don’t really know what NARs motivations are except maybe to retain members as membership is decreasing.

Yun looks like more of a cheerleader than Lereah. Look at Lereah’s comments after he left the NAR. Sorry, Dave you have two books out that contradict what you say now. So where you wrong then or are you wrong now? I can’t believe the BS he spewed in those books.

The median price in most areas is out of reach of the median wage earner. If prices decline I can tell you from experience that there is some what of a real pent up demand. When a decent house hits MLS at a substantially below market price, it usually moves. The demand of course is much lower than the past 3 years or so.

Real demand is no doubt below “normal” or where it would be if we had not had the insane bubble.

In my experience, if present prices suddenly reflected normal, historical appreciation, 3 to 4% per year, sales volume would increase to some unknown level, but the market would still be slow. A lot of demand has been artificial (speculative or created by “creative” lending practices) and it was “gobbled up” by the industry along with the “normal” demand. It’s like the kid who eats his dessert first.

It doesn’t benefit NAR, its membership or the public to paint a rosy picture where none exists.
Inventory is way up, sales way down, prices should and will also be down. In fact prices will plummet. It becomes more evident everyday. Let’s just say that and get it over with. The longer we keep the ball in the air, the longer the pain will last.

The pain is coming. It’s like avoiding going to the dentist. Your right incisor ain’t gonna stop hurting and heal itself.

The housing market problems could and probably will spill over into the general economy and wreck some havoc. It has already hurt directly related industries, construction, furniture etc. Where ever it’s going it makes no sense to me to attempt to put it off by bending numbers. Let it happen, get it over with.

We had the desert, now we have to take our medicine. OWIE!!!!

Anonymous said...

As a member of NAR and a RE Broker, I just keep asking myself what is the problem with telling it like it is.

Prices are falling, demand is low. Now you gotta work harder.
I don’t really know what NARs motivations are except maybe to retain members as membership is decreasing. Yun looks like more of a cheerleader than Lereah. Look at Lereah’s comments after he left the NAR. Sorry, Dave you have two books out that contradict what you say now. So where you wrong then or are you wrong now? I can’t believe the BS he spewed in those books.

The median price in most areas is out of reach of the median wage earner. If prices decline I can tell you from experience that there is some what of a real pent up demand. When a decent house hits MLS at a substantially below market price, it usually moves. The demand of course is much lower than the past 3 years or so. Real demand is no doubt below “normal” or where it would be if we had not had the insane bubble.
In my experience, if present prices suddenly reflected normal, historical appreciation, 3 to 4% per year, sales volume would increase to some unknown level, but the market would still be slow. A lot of demand has been artificial (speculative or created by “creative” lending practices) and it was “gobbled up” by the industry along with the “normal” demand. It’s like the kid who eats his dessert first.
It doesn’t benefit NAR, its membership or the public to paint a rosy picture where none exists.
Inventory is way up, sales way down, prices should and will also be down. In fact rices will plummet. It becomes more evident everyday. Let’s just say that and get it over with. The longer we keep the ball in the air, the longer the pain will last.
The pain is coming. It’s like avoiding going to the dentist. Your right incisor ain’t gonna stop hurting and heal itself.
The housing market could and probably will spill over into the general economy and wreck some havoc. It has already hurt directly related industries, construction, furniture etc. Where ever it’s going it makes no sense to me to attempt to put it off by bending numbers. Let it happen, get it over with.

Anonymous said...

Home down the road closed yesterday. Price was $645K. Mortgage was $508K.

On 7/31 a house closed for $512K with a mortgage of $400K. Much smaller house, this area ranges from the low $400sK to $1.5M and everything in between.

Info for both is from county web site. I could care less what the NAR says. I'm telling you what I see.

I keep reading about all this supposed dried up lending yet on my little street in less than a month close to $1M worth of loans was funded.

For all I know my street has magic beans in it. I dunno. What I do know is that on the ground in my neck of the woods, getting a mortgage funded does not seem to be a problem.

Unknown said...

Yes. But what are the odds that they would lower their forcast for *9* consequetive months!?

Never going to happen!

(heh)

Anonymous said...

Monkeys are smarter than these guys.

They don't tell the other monkeys that next month's banana crop will be great even though it hasn't rained in two years.

Talk about dopes!

Anonymous said...

Until housing prices are inline with wages, and jobs (beyond the public sector) have a life expectancy beyond 5 years, there will not be any appreciable house buying for quite sometime.


Here are more meaningless statements from the "expert" Lawrence Yun.

“With the population growing, the demand for homes isn’t going away, it’s just being delayed,”
Lawrence Yun, the group’s senior economist, said.

“More buyers and cutbacks in new construction will eventually draw down the inventory levels and support future price appreciation, but general gains will be modest next year.

Anonymous said...

It's funny now to see the MSM quote Lawrence YumYum Yun with the qualifier "for the eighth straight month NAR has lowered/revised downward their projections..."

Even the MSM knows the numbers are a joke now.


RE Tollhead. His company lawyers probably told him to keep his mouth shut.

Anonymous said...

Notice how it's "the mortgage markets" fault?

You see, if it weren't for these financial problems, C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E-L-Y unrelated to home building, the whole market would be fine....

Unknown said...

Ramen eating monkies in gold blazers.

SOMEONE PLEASE get a photo of a monkey eating Ramen for Kieth!!!!!!

Preferably in a gold blazer.

thank u.

Paul E. Math said...

I don't think they make a beach towel big enough for the troll to clean himself off after this one.

Regarding the NAR, it is hilarious how they are always so wrong yet so confident about their predictions. Kinda like a kid who keeps calling the outfielders in every time he's at bat but always strikes out swinging. It's funny the first few times but then it gets old and you just wish his dad wasn't the coach and you could put him on the bench. Know what I mean?

Anonymous said...

Buh...bah, Maria "Lend Me Your Corporate Jet" Bartoramo keeps saying on CNBC that everything is soooo rosy! In a parrot manner, she keeps vomiting daily: "The multinationals, the multinationals, the multinationals, are going to saves us all!!!"

Anonymous said...

credit is available to the well-heeled. And, upper-scale housing is still selling; this much is true. You think maybe that's why the median home price is still going up in some areas? The fact that lower income earners can't get financed, and now can't buy cheap housing; does not take a statistics expert to figure that one out.

Now think about it. If the lower income earners can't buy that first home, how is the next level of the greatest MLM scam, know more commonly as the housing market, going to move up; pushing up the next tier and so on and so forth. It takes time my friend. First, the credit dries up for the poor, causing them to be shut out of the market. Then home values stall forcing people to pay for their lifestyles with actual wages and not helocs. Foreclosures rise, more credit dries up and next thing you know, the prime mortgage market gets expensive. And, this is *just* the beginning of this vicious cycle...just the beginning.

pwnd

Trevor Cordes said...

I sold my HB's puts on Wed midday on the 5-15% rise. They went above my target of 188 on the $HGX.X, which is the right shoulder and will either become support or resistance. Until I know which it is, I'm out with huge gains since buying Jul-Sep 2005.

Not even DOPES has picked up on the insane short-cover ("save our option-writing asses!") rally in HB's. 10-30% in 3 days. Even I didn't think it would get above 4-8% in 1 day, and I had to sell pretty damn quick to get out while the getting was good. The risk is we repeat 2006 which had the HB's going majorly up starting in July through 1Q07 to save the LEAP-writers asses for Jan expiration. I'm starting to wise up to the HB stock price manipulation the hedgies do so they don't get hosed by their naked put writing.

So what to do next? I'm watching HGX and XHB (maybe my new preferred vehicle for play) at key levels. I'm watching the Aug options expiration. I'm watching the short squeeze jack-up so they can cover naked puts. This could be an excellent time to buy into HB shorts/puts as they artifically jack up these dogs. But watch out... they could be pulling a Jul-Dec 2006 which would devastate any short-term option buyers. If you want to buy & hold for more than a few days, buy 2009/2010 puts.

I've been thinking about the psychological side. Can you believe a few of the Aug 9 MSM articles (MSN, CNBC, Fool) were actually putting a POSITIVE spin on the HB's?! They took the latest NAR/Yun crap to mean that 2008 will be better than 2007! They even spun the Toll release as indicating the same thing ("pent up demand"). All HPers know this is total crap. But it looks like that plus short squeeze equals HB stocks rising big-time. If you want to make some big money, all we have to do is figure out what will (and when will it) trigger the MSM to realize they yet again called the bottom too soon and that things are getting worse for the HB's.

The govt/NAR stats releases? Probably nah, too cooked and under-reported reivised. Not unless we get a really really bad number, and even then people might be too forward looking with rose-colored glasses.

Since we just finished quarterly earnings season (any HB's yet to report/warn?), I'm thinking perhaps things will be rosy until 3Q07 reports start up: a whole 2.5-3 months from now. That would jive with 2006. Sucker them back in to kill 'em again next year. And that would sucker the massive shorts out there right now. Just the way they like it.

Anyone else want to play and add some ideas here? I'm so torn as the charts are awful H&S bear breakouts or hovering on the brink yet the big guys are going to try to cream the little guy and save their option-writing asses. To make it even worse, who knows if HB manipulation will work in the face of a possibly-melting broad market and continued mortgage meltdown. If there's enough pressure, HB's may be dragged down also.

Good luck!