FLASH: GOLDMAN SACHS PREDICTS UNITED STATES HOME PRICES TO COLLAPSE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

I never thought I'd see the day that a major US investment bank admitted what we've known here at HP for years - that the United States housing market will suffer a historic crash, and the drop from peak to trough will be sickening. Man, has the world gone HousingPANIC?

IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING BUYING A HOME TODAY - DON'T. IF YOU'RE TRYING TO SELL YOUR HOME, CUT THE PRICE, CUT IT FAST AND CUT IT HARD. YOU'LL BE LUCKY TO GET OUT. IF YOU'RE LISTENING TO A REALTOR ON COMMISSION, WELL, THEN YOU'RE SIMPLY A FOOL.

A 15% nationwide decline will be horrific folks. A 30% decline will stun even me. I can't even picture how devastating that will be, for the homedebtors who listened to realtors on commission, and for the American and world economies. Banks will fail. Millions will lose their jobs. Cities will go bankrupt. And the US dollar will collapse.

But I think we all need to get our heads around that number folks. A 30% nationwide decline would mean places like Phoenix, Tampa, San Diego, Vegas, Naples, Boston, DC, Detroit, Sacramento and more will see 50%+ declines, and will not just see recessions, they'll see true 1920's type depressions.

Wow. This is gonna be ugly. Get ready. We predicted it, but now we have to deal with it.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The housing slump has increased the chance of a U.S. recession and will further weaken home prices, Goldman Sachs Group said on Tuesday, cutting its stock recommendations on a slew of companies vulnerable to sluggish growth.

In a grim assessment of the U.S. economy's health, the investment bank said the Federal Reserve will have to cut its lending rate to banks by 1-1/2 percentage points to 3 percent in the next six to nine months to avert a recession.

Home prices will likely decline by 15 percent from their peak. But if the United States enters a recession -- which Goldman expects the economy to narrowly escape -- home prices could fall as much as 30 percent nationwide, it said.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Still believe what the government, NAR, ratings agencies, analysts, REIC and MSM tell you now?

Talking Points for NAR's "Buy Now" Campaign - November 2006

Conditions are now ideal for buyers. Interest rates are comparable to 40-year lows, and inventories are higher than they have been in decades. Consumers have exceptional choice. But these conditions may not last. August pending home sales rose 4.5 percent, and prices are expected to rise again next year. Even the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve says that the housing market outlook is improving.

Real estate is an outstanding investment. House values rose 88 percent on a national average over the past decade. The number of U.S. households is expected to increase 15 percent during the next decade, creating a continued high demand for housing.

Conditions are improving for sellers. This year will be the third-best on record, and prices are expected to rise modestly next year.

The campaign opens on Friday, November 3, 2006, with full-page advertisements in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and will run Sunday, November 5 in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune. It will run in the same six newspapers again on the weekend of November 12.

This is the beginning of a campaign that will also include two new network television and radio ads, to begin airing in January 2007 as part of NAR's $40 million Public Awareness Campaign.

Suzanne and Nicholas Retsinas - the two biggest jokes of the housing bubble and crash

I'm not sure what I like looking back on more, now that we know what we know - the Suzanne video, or Nicholas Retsinas' (of the discredited and corrupt Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies) hilarious and mistimed diatribe against HP'ers and "Chicken Littles"

Suzanne and Nicholas, well done! HP'ers - any other nominees for biggest joke of the housing bubble & crash? List 'em here.

So here's Suzanne and Nicholas. What a nice couple! Enjoy!

The housing wail

by Nicolas P. Retsinas September 24, 2006

"HOUSING BUST AHEAD." The headline hints of catastrophe: a dot-com repeat, a bubble bursting, an economic apocalypse.

Cassandra, though, can stop wailing: the expected price corrections mark a slowing in the rate of increase -- not a precipitous decline. This will not spark a chain reaction that will devastate home owners, builders, and communities.

Contradicting another gloomy seer, Chicken Little, the sky is not falling. Let me alleviate some fears.


And now here's Suzanne, in all her glory:

Alt-A / "Liar's Loan" mortgage king IndyMac's newest spin - "It's all good - we suck only just as bad as Countrywide"!!!

I think this would be like WorldCom saying that everything was OK because Enron was in a similar boat. Or buggy whip Company A saying all would be fine because they were tracking nicely against buggy whip Company B.

These guys really are amazing.

Yes, I'm short IndyMac via put options. I figure one day this company will have to stop with the spin and report the truth - but my guess is that it'll be the public auditors or Feds who come clean first, not IndyMac, their CEO or their PR flak Grove Nichols. What they don't mention in this posting are three very very important words, the 800 pound guerrilla in the room:

MARK TO MARKET

Here's just some of IndyMac's latest spin:

Update on Delinquencies in Our Mortgage Loan Servicing Portfolio
July 20th, 2007

In line with our expectations and as we communicated last quarter, delinquencies in our $184 billion servicing portfolio increased in the second quarter of 2007. As the following table illustrates, 30+ day delinquencies for our servicing portfolio in the second quarter of 2007 were 5.35 percent, up from 4.10 percent a year ago and 4.37 percent last quarter. Foreclosures also increased to 1.15 percent in the second quarter, up from 0.89 percent in the prior quarter.

While our delinquency rates have increased, they are comparable to Countrywide Financial Corp., which was ranked by the National Mortgage News as the No. 1 residential mortgage originator and the No. 2 residential servicer in the U.S. for the first quarter of 2007. On July 16, 2007, Countrywide reported a 30+ day delinquency rate in their servicing portfolio of 4.77 percent for the period ending June 30, 2007. Indymac’s modestly higher delinquency rate can be attributed to the fact that Countrywide carries a much higher mix of agency/conforming loans in their servicing portfolio relative to Indymac.

Grove Nichols
Communications Director

HousingPANIC Homework: Email Miami, Phoenix, Vegas and San Diego realtors, ask them if now is a good time to buy an investment condo, and report back

Here's local market conditions (alternate reality version), courtesy of RealtyTimes.com

Miami

Phoenix

Vegas

San Diego

Today's project is to email two random realtors in these housing crash hotspots, letting them know you're out of state and thinking of buying investment property, and asking them if now is a good time to buy.

Then report back here. NO NAMES ALLOWED - no need to kick the little guys when they're down. Just report the city and what they have to say.

When picking your two to email, I'd recommend the ones with the most hilariously head-in-the-sand write-ups on RealtyTimes, like "Now is a good time to buy!" and "there are signs the market is leveling off" and this gem: "Finally a normal market. Don't believe all of the gloom and doom you here in the media about the housing market." (actual realtor quotes from Phoenix)

Enjoy!

Extra credit - try any of the other risky and overpriced cities like Orlando, San Francisco, Chicago, Cincy, KC, Naples, DC, Honolulu, NYC, Boston, San Jose, LA and Sacramento

I do love RealtyTimes - it's like reading notes from the Flat Earth Society or White House PR. Always a hoot

FLASH: The center no longer holds, and today was the day when it all fell apart. S&P admits to the biggest financial con game of all time.

In order for the Great Housing Con Game to work, the bagholders (the buyers of the toxic subprime and liar's loan crap) had to believe that one day they'd get paid back. Even though this garbage was being lent out to people who lied about their jobs, their income and their ability to pay. Or worse yet to people with no jobs, no credit, no income, no honesty, no problem gaming the system themselves and absolutely positively no possible way to make good on the loans once the Ponzi Scheme ended.

Yes, think Casey Serin. Think David Crisp. Think of all the get-rich-quick failed flippers, think the $30,000 income families buying $800,000 homes, think Phoenix, think Miami, think all the sheeple who thought real estate could only go up and up.

So why did the bagholders of these mortgages (China, hedge funds, pension funds, overseas investors), which were so nicely bundled up into neat little CDO's, think they'd get paid back? Why did they think that obvious hilarious loan garbage was worth the price they were paying?

Because the "unbiased ratings agencies" told them so.

Well, not anymore. S&P, one of the three major CDO ratings agencies, now staring lawsuits, jail sentences and the collapse of their game straight in the face, bitchslapped the housing and mortgage market today and simply came clean, in one of the ugliest financial mea-culpas I've ever seen. Simply put, the charade is over. And hundreds of billions, more likley trillions, will now be lost.

So now, the housing collapse goes into overdrive. The Subprime and Alt-A industries die. Hedge funds worldwide fail. Pension funds screw their retirees. Markets crash. China gets pissed. Lending tightens even more. Demand plummets even more. And home prices crash even faster.

It's all over folks. Now we just count up the damage and look for someone to blame.

S&P finally says subprime is mostly junk - New methodology is death knell for the troubled industry

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Standard & Poor's just drove a huge harpoon into the heart of the mortgage credit bubble and it's going to take a long time to clean up the mess once the beast finally dies.

S&P, one of the three main credit-rating agencies that served as enablers of the subprime mortgage boom, announced Tuesday that it would lower its ratings on 612 bonds, a small portion of the mortgage-backed securities it had given its seal of approval to.

But the bigger news is that S&P isn't going along with the charade any more. S&P said it would change its methodology for ratings hundreds of billions of dollars in residential mortgage-backed securities.

And it would review its ratings on hundreds of billions of dollars in the more complex collateralized debt obligations based on those subprime loans.

A lot of debt will be downgraded to junk status. A lot of that debt will have to be sold at fire-sale prices. A lot of pension funds and hedge funds that once thrived on the high returns they could get from investing in subprime junk will now lose a lot of money.

S&P's announcement is a death warrant for the subprime industry. No longer will mortgage brokers be able to help buyers lie their way into a home. Fewer stressed homeowners will be able to refinance their mortgage, thus extending and exacerbating the housing bust.

"We do not foresee the poor performance abating," S&P said. Prices will fall, and foreclosures will rise. More mortgage fraud will be uncovered as the tide goes out.

For true HP wonks, you can read the whole nasty report here.

CNBC's Diana Olick rips the homebuilder CEOs. HP takes it up a notch from there.

HP has a simple message for the stock-pumping, lying, deceiving, illegal-immigrant-hiring, system-gaming, short-term-thinking, insider-stock-trading homebuilder CEO swindlers whose bloody hands are all over the dead housing industry's corpse.

F@*$ you.

You ruined yet another American industry, you enriched yourselves at the public's expense, you've ruined lives, you've destroyed families, and some of you will now be heading to jail.

Sleep well at night?

Here's excerpts from Diana's latest post. I hope the knives really come out soon (and the cuffs)

Home Builder Sentiment Down: And They’re Mad At Me??

If you happened to read my blog last week, you’ll remember what a warm reception I got from the CEOs of the major public home builders at the JP Morgan Basics and Industrials conference. As they summarily rejected my polite requests for interviews at our live camera, they also made it abundantly clear that it was media hype fueling the negative sentiment among healthy home buyers across the nation.

And then again today I had the joy of reporting yet another negative number for the housing sector. This is a fave of mine, because it’s not about the buyers and the government stats, or the real estate agents and their sales figures--it’s about the builders and their feelings, nothing more than feelings (sorry).

And the number is down again--down to 28, a low not seen since February of 1991.

So despite the fact that all these CEOs were telling me that I’m the only one shouting from the rooftops that the housing market is in trouble, they were busy quietly telling the bean counters at NAHB, that they really kinda felt the same way.

Yes, I know, the CEOs need to pump the stocks and pump up the stockholders’ enthusiasm, but come on

So I’d just like to throw out a big ol’ thank you to all those home builders out there who told their industry representatives that they think there might be some problems still to work out in housing. Forgive me for reporting your number. Didn’t mean to seem too bearish. And do let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.

Great news everyone! According to Yahoo and Realty Times, there was no housing bubble, real estate to be just fine

My question - Is it possible to sue these people? Nice to see Yahoo allow Realty Times to pollute their real estate section with this spin and blather. And nice to see Realty Times do their best to completely discredit the REALTOR profession.

Real Estate Sky Won't Fall: Here's Why

Real estate hasn't made much of a case for itself lately and it's not getting much help from any of the sub industries, such as builders and mortgage makers. Just in the past few weeks, so called experts from the mortgage industry, the building industry, and the resale real estate industry have all been quoted as saying that the sky is falling.

Nice job guys!

And while real estate's reputation as the number one investment is on the ropes, the general media and other investment categories have stepped up their attacks on real estate value. What do you need to know?

1) The Sky isn't falling.
2) Real estate is unique.
3) There is no bubble.
4) Value is a complicated cocktail.
5) There is always a baseline of demand.
6) There is always a baseline of mortgage defaults.
7) There is no risk.
8) Real estate is a great way to build wealth.

So, perhaps, don't believe every "the sky if falling" report or article. Educate yourself on the market and happy wealth homeowning!

FLASH: NAR (for the fourth straight month) changes its mind, says home prices are gonna fall even further than forecast. Yes, they're run by monkeys.

These monthly predictions from the Incompetent Lawrence Yun and the NAR are hilarious. Too bad they're still not even close to reality.

Come on NAR - just come clean. You're not fooling anyone. Your forecasts are a joke, your data is a joke (got incentives? got cash back?), and your ramen eaters are getting hungrier and hungrier while you spin, lie and deceive.

Home sales, prices to slip further in 2007: NAR

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Home sales and prices will fall at a faster pace in 2007 than originally expected, a leading U.S. real estate trade association said on Wednesday.

The National Association of Realtors trimmed its sales forecast for the fourth straight month and said it now expected sale prices would drop more sharply than it previously forecast

Pigs Fly Alert: USAToday front page story exposes $59 Trillion US Debt ($516,000 per household)

Man, the MSM is going HP it looks like. We've been screaming about this issue forever, and I do believe this is the very first MSM article that I've seen.

Meanwhile, do Americans even care? I think when you say "$59 Trillion" people's eyes gloss over. What's on America's Top Model?

It's sickening that our government so blatantly deceives us, and the MSM goes along for the ride. Bravo to Dennis Cauchon at the USAToday for doing his job. Too bad it's too late, and too bad his MSM peers are so pathetically incompetent.

Folks, we're either going to have to go insolvent, cancel entitlement programs, or print dollars like Wiemar Germany to get out of this mess.


Taxpayers on the hook for $59 trillion
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.

"We're on an unsustainable path and doing a great disservice to future generations," says Chris Chocola, a former Republican member of Congress from Indiana and corporate chief executive who is pushing for more accurate federal accounting.

Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.

The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.


Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.


BALANCE DUE
The cost per U.S. household of unfunded promises made by federal, state and local government:


Medicare
$255,280


Social Security
$144,251

Federal debt
$43,380

Military benefits
$25,863

State and local debt
$17,537

Federal civil- servant benefits
$14,374

State and local retiree benefits
$13,114

Other federal obligations
$2,548

Total
$516,348

Was the MSM's performance yesterday the worst you have ever seen?

Here's how today's cheerleader MSM would have spun the 1929 stock market crash (based on their sickening performance yesterday)

Stock market trading soars! Record increase in sales!

Folks, I am dumbfounded, ashamed, sickened and not surprised by what we saw yesterday.

This is of course the same MSM who jumped on tanks with their little American flags blowing in the top left corner of the screen as we bumrushed Iraq to get those bad WMD's that were definitely there

This is of course the same MSM who throughout the housing bubble ran with "real estate only goes up", "new paradigm" and "buy now or be priced out forever" even though it was obvious we were in a historic bubble.

And this is of course the same MSM who refused to report the truth as millions and millions of illegals stormed our border.

I am ashamed of the American journalism profession. I'm not sure exactly when it died, but it is dead. There may be a good reporter or two out there, who wants to report the truth and who wants to dig beyond the press release, but they must be miserable today, surrounded by a ship of fools, and controlled by businessmen with an agenda.

Thank god for blogs. How else would we know what was REALLY going on out there?

Post-houisng-bubble regulation: Will the REIC and MSM have to expose conflict of interest in the future?

One good thing that came out of the dot-com collapse is that analysts and media have to expose when they have any potential conflict of interest - stock holdings, investment banking relationships, etc.

Well, as we all know, that doesn't happen today with real estate.

You have people like The Corrupt David Lereah out there cheerleading housing, while speculating in investment condos, having his salary paid by six percenters, and making money off of "housing never goes down" books.

You have Nicholas Retsinas at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing putting out "there is no bubble" statements, when his salary is paid for by the who's-who of the REIC.

You have MSM reporters cheerleading housing because their salaries are paid for by REIC ads, and on a personal level their house is their biggest financial asset (or risk). In other words, their entire career and financial well-being rests on house prices going up.

And you have real estate clerks giving their expert unbiased views to the MSM on how we've "hit bottom" and how "it's a great time to buy or sell", when the only thing standing between them and a lifetime of Top Ramen is getting suckers to believe that it's a great time to buy or sell.

Real Estate and stocks should be treated the exact same way. Anyone with a vested interest in the asset in question should be required by law to expose their potential conflicts.

Until then, the public will continue to be duped, conned, lied to, deceived and crushed.

HousingPANIC full disclosure: I don't own any real estate thank god.

FLASH: Bernanke - "we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system"

FLASH: HousingPANIC says - "Wanna bet?!".

Either Bernanke is as incompetent and clueless as other Bush appointees, or he's just lying through his teeth to try to calm down the situation.

Either way, he's wrong. Why our leaders think Americans need everything sugar-coated I'll never understand. Just tell it how it is. We can handle it. Even if it sucks.

Fed: Mortgage Defaults Won't Hurt Economy

Fed Chief Says He Doesn't Believe Growing Number of Mortgage Defaults Will Seriously Harm Economy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday that he did not believe the growing number of mortgage defaults would seriously harm the economy.

Facing criticism from members of Congress about lax regulation, Bernanke also promised that the Fed would do everything possible to crack down on abuses that have put millions of homeowners in jeopardy of defaulting on their mortgages.

"We at the Federal Reserve will do all that we can to prevent fraud and abusive lending and to ensure that lenders employ sound underwriting practices and make effective disclosures to consumers," Bernanke said in remarks prepared for a financial conference in Chicago.

However, Bernanke in his remarks did not detail any specific tightening of regulations, saying only that the Fed would hold hearings in coming weeks on the matter.

Bernanke said while it was likely that there would be further increases in mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures this year and in 2008, he did not believe this problem would be enough to derail the overall economy.

"We believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will be limited and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system," Bernanke said in his remarks, copies of which were distributed in Washington.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

This one's a bit harsh but needs to be asked...

Should poor people with limited income, inconsistent work and credit histories and no chance of paying the loan back have been allowed to buy $500,000 houses with teaser rate liar's loans on interest only terms with no money down?

Follow-up question - what were Countrywide and IndyMac thinking?

(Disclosure - I'm short IndyMac, and not in favor of people living beyond their means)

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson goes on record, calls housing crash bottom

Ha.

Ha ha ha ha.

Ha ha.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha.

Ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson delivered an upbeat assessment of the economy, saying growth was healthy and the housing market was nearing a turnaround.

"All the signs I look at" show "the housing market is at or near the bottom," Paulson said in a speech to a business group in New York. The U.S. economy is "very healthy" and "robust," Paulson said

NAR to put out used home sales report tomorrow. Watch The Corrupt David Lereah spin his ass off

Don't be snowed when The Corrupt David Lereah spins the horrific drop in home sales by comparing March to February, when any idiot knows the real and only comparison is March 2007 vs. March 2006.

Watch the clueless and complicit MSM go with the March vs. February number. Also watch the MSM not question the median price number, which doesn't include incentives and cash back.

And watch the MSM take TCDL's "it was the weather" excuse and tell the frightened masses that "it appears we're bottoming", even though unsold and unwanted inventory will be soaring to close to a year's supply in many markets.

Regardless of the lies, deception and spin, the numbers tomorrow are going to be truly horrific. Even the NAR won't be able to hide the truth (spin as they may).

The NAR f*cks over the gullible MSM and sheeple, leads them to believe used home sales were up last month. That was NOT the case.

Yup, the spinmeisters at the NAR are good. Real good. To be matched only by the laziness and incompetence of the mainstream media.

Why do the bloggers have to do the work of the MSM? For god's sake - they get paid to do a job, not copy and paste NAR press releases!

Anyway, as any dolt knows, home sales increase in the springtime month over month, every year, even if the world is ending. It's called "the home buying season" for a reason. So you don't look at February vs. January, or April vs. March. No, just like retailers look at Christmas vs. Christmas, not Christmas vs. July, any dummy that follows the housing market, INCLUDING THE FU*KING NAR, looks year over year.

Here's the real numbers, and headline the MSM should have reported:

Dubious NAR report shows home sales continue to crater, off 3.7% vs. last year, while unsold inventory explodes by another 763,000 units and median sales price (without incentives) is down 7.6% from peak

February used home sales (per the dubious NAR numbers) were supposedly 387,000 units, vs. 402,000 units February 2006, down 3.7%. Inventory is now at 3,748,000, vs. 2,985,000 in February 2006, up 763,000 unwanted homes, or 25.6%. And the median sales price (without cash back or incentives) in February of $212,800 is down $17,400 from the July 2006 peak.

Suck on that MSM. And next time, in April, or May, when the NAR spins you like a top again, wake the fu*k up and do your f*cking jobs. Here's the breathless report in the New York Times, one of many with the same headline and spin.

(chart from the always-spot-on housingdoom blog, who is all over this NAR spin and BS)

Existing-Home Sales Rise Most in 3 Years

Sales of existing homes rose in February by the largest amount in nearly three years, but worsening troubles in subprime mortgages were viewed as a roadblock to a full-fledged rebound.

The National Association of Realtors reported on Friday that existing-home sales climbed 3.9 percent last month, pushed higher by a milder-than-normal winter that increased sales in some areas like the Northeast.

It was the biggest one-month gain since March 2004 and left sales at an annual rate of 6.69 million units, a pace that was still 3.6 percent below a year ago.

Existing-home sales were up 14.2 percent in the Northeast, a gain attributed in large part to warmer-than-normal weather.

I hope you don't trust the government during times of financial crisis

You're doin a heckuva job there Hankie. You're right - there's no storm brewing. All is fine. Everyone move along. American Idol is on soon, right?

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Tuesday that a weakened housing market will not have a major impact on the U.S. financial sector, which he described as quite healthy.

In a roundtable session with reporters during a visit to Tokyo, Paulson said the housing downturn had had some impact on certain types of mortgages but he did not see it as a major problem.

"Some of the credit issues are there, but they're largely contained," Paulson said.
The U.S. Treasury chief was on the first leg of a three-country trip that will also take him to South Korea and China before he returns to Washington on Thursday.

He described global economic conditions as very healthy and played down recent drops in global equity prices.

"The global economy is more than sound," Paulson said. "It's as strong in the last couple of years as I've seen in a lifetime.

"All the economies are growing, inflation is low, and liquidity is high," he said.

New homes supposedly plummet only 16.6%, real number is probably down 66.6%

Man, I sure wish we (and the market) had access to some real data, vs. the BS put out by the NAR and Commerce Department.

This new home survey is so worthless, I don't even know where to start. How they can put out a number with a straight face regarding new homes when they know damn straight (just read the homebuilder announcements) that cancellations are running 40% - 50%, yet this report just shows offers, not closed deals.

The price number is also laughable, knowing that builders are offering everything but the kitchen sink to sell dead inventory, but those discounts and incentives aren't recorded here.

At least the MSM is now talking about how laughable the data is (see below). But the headlines are still misleading at best. And today's new home report makes the NAR's report yesterday even more laughable and discredited. Americans, you're being misled, you're being lied to.

Here's your real headline, HP version:

NEW HOME SALES FALL OFF A CLIFF - DOWN 66.6%, REAL PRICES PLUNGE ANOTHER 20%. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF REIC JOBS DISAPPEAR, HOUSING CRASH OF EPIC AND HISTORIC PROPORTIONS IS UPON US

Instead, here's what the Commerce Department and MSM give us today:

New-home sales plunge 16.6% to 937,000 - Commerce Department reports biggest percentage drop in 13 years

Sales of new homes plunged 16.6% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 937,000, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

It was the lowest sales pace in four years, and was the biggest percentage decline in 13 years.
Sales were down 20.1% compared with January 2006.

The decline in sales was much sharper than expected. The median forecast of economists surveyed by MarketWatch was a drop to 1.08 million units, annualized. See Economic Calendar.

Home builders have piled on incentives, including offering free vacations and new cars, to sell homes and reduce inventories. Such incentives aren't subtracted from the sales price reported to the government.

Sales are reported when a contract is signed, not at the closing of the sale. Home builders have reported a large increase in cancellations in recent months. Cancellations aren't reflected in the government data, so the reported sales are probably overstated.

Update - I liked this analyst quote later today:

"Let's cut to the chase - these numbers were ugly," wrote Mike Larson, real estate analyst at Weiss Research in Jupiter., Fla. "While the month-to-month changes in new home sales figures can be volatile, the magnitude of the decline is impressive.

Trust the "experts" - there was no housing bubble. It's different this time! All will be fine!

They all sounded so convincing at the time, didn't they HP'ers? The MSM sure thought so. Millions of Desperate Homedebtors sure hoped so. But alas, they were a parade of fools, some corrupt, some stupid, and all wrong.

First, you have the NAR's anti-bubble realtor spin instructions, which are still up on their website:

These downloadable 10-page reports show that the facts simply do not support the possibility of a housing bust -- not for these 135 markets and not for the nation

And The Corrupt David Lereah from January 2006:

"The level of home sales activity is now at a sustainable level, and is likely to pick up a bit in the months ahead."

Then there was the idiot MSN columninst Jim Jubak in June 2005 with this gem:

Why there is no housing bubble. The sky is not falling. Yes, home prices are sky-high, but we really don't have a housing bubble that is anywhere near bursting.

And of course, you have NAR-poodle Nicholas Retsinas at the corrupt Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies boldly proclaiming in 2002:

Bubbles, of course, do burst; but housing is not a bubble akin to tulips or to Enron or other corporate scandals. It is a concrete product -- a place where people live. And as anybody who has sold or bought a house can attest, it is not an easily fungible commodity.

And Dr. James Smith, the dimwitted and corrupt chief economist for the Society of Industrial and Office realtors, pontificated in April 2005:

There Is No Housing Bubble in the USA - There is no evidence of a housing “bubble” in the United States and housing demand should stay strong for years to come.

And finally, Donald Trump's little play thing Kendra Todd:

"You can't go anywhere without hearing people talk about "the real estate bubble." Such talk drives me to distraction, and I'll tell you why. It's because there is no real estate bubble. Bubbles are for bathtubs."

I hope Americans know a fraud, a liar and a con-man next time they see one. The housing bubble sure brought out the bunch of 'em. And some are still at it. But their day is done. It's over.