Here's Blanche, poor, poor Blanche, finding herself in a massive gaping historic obvious hole, and digging like a crazed fox.
Come on Blanche, "blame the media" or "pretend there is no housing crash" is sooooooooo 2007. Ya gotta come up with a new schtick babe. You're embarrassing yourself. Maybe do a Lereah, and come clean. More lies won't make the bad truth go away hon.
Her great advice HP'ers? (after being so so so so wrong these past couple of years) "Stop listening to the media. Go buy a home." To which HP says "Never trust Blanche Evans, Realty Times or any realtor on commission ever again."
Why Buy Now? Media Is Wrong About Housing Slump
Why buy a house now? You've been getting bad information. Here's why.
The financial press is worried that they might have gone too far -- paralyzing the nation into recession by piling on housing. So they're finally beginning to question the indexes where they get their data, and whether the news is really as bad as it seems. Slowly but surely, headlines are changing from Don't Buy A Home Now to Is It Time To Buy?
Stop listening to the media. Go buy a home.
No, this is not a joke.
David Lereah, the thoroughly discredited former Chief Cheerleader for the evil National Association of realtors, publisher of the hilarious comedy "Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust", and pinata for this blog among others, has come out of his self-imposed hole.
Hey, a guy has to make a living somehow, right?
So Lereah has these gems in Newsweek - and no, THIS IS NOT A JOKE.
"We're not at the bottom," he says. "[People] want it to be near the bottom, but we're not there yet. The leading indicators are still very bad. Pending home sales are still in bad shape. Mortgage applications are low … There's still supply out there in abundance … This thing is going to get worse before it gets better."
"We're probably going to end up with a 20 percent [decline], but if I'm wrong it will be even more than that"
"I didn't think this would turn into an all-out bursting of a balloon for the whole nation"
"That (lending) got so out of hand, and none of us realized the magnitude of it until it was too late."
Go ahead HP'ers. Destroy this man. Unload with both barrels. Until we get a sincere apology from Lereah for the destruction and pain he's caused, and a complete and total repudiation of his former employer the National Association of Deceptive Used Home Sellers and his replacement stooge Lawrence Yun, he's still fair game.
And for the idiots calling bottom, when the former Chief Housing Cheerleader FINALLY comes out of his hole to admit how horrifically, historically wrong he was, how bad it is, and how bad it's gonna get, any sane person should understand that when it comes to home prices, WE'RE NOWHERE NEAR BOTTOM.
I think they're running out of fools to go against Schiff. Here's probably a typical call into the NAR:
"Hi, this is Mindy at Fox Business Channel guest booking. We need another realtor to go against Peter Schiff. You got anyone stupid enough to show up and say it's a great time to buy? No, that long hair caveman freak won't come anymore. No, that coked-out blonde freak won't come either. Oh, you have another one? And are you sure she'll stick to the script? Great! Send her over!"
And for a good laugh, visit the latest Schiff victim's site
HP Poll Results:
realtors are:
Liars | 521 (62%) |
Conmen | 505 (60%) |
Thieves | 401 (47%) |
Immoral | 457 (54%) |
No longer needed | 593 (70%) |
Leaches | 472 (56%) |
Forever discredited | 507 (60%) |
Man, $75,000 in a matter of months, that's just brutal... No matter how the Arizona Republic's Rolodex-of-Realtors Catherine Reagor (she's still employed?), Phoenix realtors on commission or RL Brown wants to spin it.
If you listened to the new-home-ad-supported Arizona Republic or Reagor's always-good-for-a-quote realtor buddies these past few years and stupidly bought a new home in Phoenix, you simply got destroyed.
Here's the latest from Housing Ponzi Scheme Ground Zero, Phoenix Arizona:
Valley new-home permits dip during Feb.
Home-building was down 64 percent from a year earlier, and sales were off by 38 percent.
New-home building permits and sales across the Valley both dropped slightly in February, according to RL Brown's Phoenix Housing Market Letter. Brown said the continued slowing in permits and sales is expected as builders sell off existing speculatively built homes.
The median new-home price in the Valley fell to $225,000 last month, compared with $231,000 in January. In 2006, the Valley's median price hit $300,000.
And here again are the immortal words of a ramen-eating Phoenix six-percenter, the most discredited realtor in America who is still allowed to pollute the Arizona Republic, who has yet to admit to how horribly wrong he was or apologize to HP'ers, Phoenicians or his former clients.
The BubbleBloggers will someday bawl balefully in private, but they will never, ever admit that they have been very publicly very foolish.
You will know and I will know and in the secret chambers of their hearts they will know they were wrong all along. But as long as you don't hold your breath waiting for that contrite admission of error, you should be fine.
Seriously, I don't get the little critters. If I was a realtor,
(oh, man, I just had a vision of hell)
Anyway, IF I was a realtor
(seriously, hell)
But IF I was a realtor, I wouldn't be running around saying 'HEY, NOW'S A GREAT TIME TO BUY!" as my one and only marketing message. That BS just makes them look stupid at best and like corrupt commission-hungry ramen-eating liars at worst.
The right message for realtors, if they'd pull their heads out of their asses is this:
"Home prices are crashing, and a massive nationwide financial mania and Ponzi Scheme is imploding. If you own a home, sell now, sell at any price and get out. And if you're looking to buy, there's a sea of foreclosures and desperate sellers out there, let us help you find a screaming deal"
Now that would get the houses sellin' and the commissions flowin'. Instead, we get more of the same BS like this (thanks Ty):
But hey, I'm not holding my breath.
Everyone by now knows that Lawrence Yun, and before him David Lereah, are completely and totally discredited by now. The MSM should never print one quote from this paid liar without first stating "Lawrence Yun, who is paid to lie by the NAR, ..."
Well, even Lawrence Yun is having to deal with the reality that housing is in the early days of a historic and epic crash. And even though just a few days ago he put out a report that 2008 would be rosy, today the NAR did an about-face and admitted that 2008 is gonna suck.
Although their definition of "suck" is still nowhere near reality. You have economists predicting a 25% decline in prices and the NAR is saying 1.2%.
Yeah, good luck with that.
realtors and the NAR are now beyond hope. The realtor profession is dead, it is discredited, it is disrespected and it is destroyed. And the NAR represents the very worst of the profession - corrupt, lying and anti-American.
F*ck the NAR. F*ck Lawrence Yun. And f*ck the realtors. The jig is up.
Home prices set to slide in '08 - National Association of Realtors pulls back on outlook and forecasts second consecutive annual decline in prices and sales
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In a fresh sign that the nation's housing crisis will worsen, home prices are likely to decline in 2008 for the second straight year, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday.
"We're seeing a pattern that is consistent with skimming along the bottom of the cycle, and sales could ease modestly," said Lawrence Yun, the group's chief economist, in a statement.
I love this video from 2006. Adkins and Norman are so completely and arrogantly wrong, I don't know why anyone would EVER go to them for financial advice again. Their careers should be over, but I would guess that's already been taken care of.
A special note for Mike Norman: Sir, not only are you an as*hole, blowhard and a jerk, but you're a discredited hack who should never work in the financial realm ever again. You're toast.
A special note for Tom Adkins: Nice hair.
And to Peter Schiff - thank you, you are a man of patience and class to go up against ignorant yahoo's like these two and keep your cool.
Maricopa County Arizona Median Home Price (Zillow.com)[UPDATE - THANKS HP'ERS LIKE OC FOR DIGGING A BIT ON THIS ONE]
This F'd realtor paid $379,576 for his/her overpriced debt-trap in real-estate-hell Buckeye, Arizona (evidently never hearing the phrase "location, location, location" in August 2006.
It's now worth $266,571 and falling like a rock. A nice 16 month loss of $113,000, or $7,000 a month (so far).
Folks, it's tough to lose this kind of money this fast. Instead of writing letters to the editor bitching about the negative nellies, he/she should have picked up a copy of Manias, Panics and Crashes, and listened to HP.
You have permission to enjoy the schadenfreude on this one. Amazing.
[UPDATE]
What this writer didn't disclose in the letter is that she's not just a desperate homedebtor, but also a realtor. But hey, we should have guessed it. Like coke dealers doing coke. Bad idea.
What's sad is that these "blame the media" realtors and homedebtors will continue to blame the media during and after the crash. They won't blame the lying realtors, or the corrupt mortgage brokers, or the greedy builders, or the mortgage fraudsters, or the failed flippers, or the illegals, or the Fed, or anyone really responsible for this mess.
No, they'll just blame the media for exposing the truth. That's easier.
Well, I think HP'ers are happy to have played a part in exposing the big scam. No matter what realtors on commission and housing gamblers wanted.
Letter to the Editor - Arizona Republic
No housing 'bubble' bursting in the Valley
May. 27, 2006 12:00 AM
I see an awful lot written about the real estate "bubble" bursting, but I've yet to see evidence of this happening in Phoenix.I'm buying a home in Buckeye, a town that has seen a 4 percent increase in sales this quarter compared with the same time last year and where price appreciation has increased every month during the past three months.
In the overall Phoenix market, inventory is up more than 10 times year-ago levels; prices are up 70 percent over 2004 levels; yet sales dipped only 7 percent in the first quarter of 2006. Is this evidence of a bubble bursting? I think not.
- Sonny Shrivastava, Tolleson
