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

I am so digging CNBC's Diana Olick these days... And so counting the days until Harvard's Nicholas Retsinas is fired

Here's Diana picking up HP's flame of the corrupted and laughable Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, and its discredited REIC poodle Nicholas Retsinas

Yes, folks, blogs can make a difference. Thanks HP'ers for fighting the good fight. Now do the right thing - contact Harvard's president here and ask for the immediate firing of Nicholas Retsinas

Here's Realty Check:

Housing Crisis Solution For U.S.: More Immigration?

An interesting op-ed in the Boston Globe last week from Nicholas P. Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. The premise: baby boomers had better embrace immigrants, because they’re the ones who are going to buy their homes.

Retsinas makes a strong supply and demand argument, citing that “the cornerstone of housing robustness is strong demand, and the foreign-born constitute a major segment of that demand.” He throws out some strong numbers; like that 40% of net new household formation in the first five years of this century was foreign-born, up from only 15% in the 1980s.

I get it, but is this really the argument we want to be making as a solution to the nationwide downturn in housing sales and prices? I don’t know that I want to jump into the immigration debate, but here goes: this feels something like the outsourcing argument. If we can’t support our own housing industry, then should we just bring in more foreigners to save it?

How stupid are Treasury Secretary Walter Paulson's comments on housing looking now?

This quote will be one for the ages. Kinda like "we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"

Here's Paulson in all of his laughable, bizarre, corrupt, misguided, lying glory:

WASHINGTON - The major slump in the housing market is nearing an end and should not have a significant impact on the overall economy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday.

"We have had a major housing correction in this country," Paulson said in an interview with a small group of reporters at the Treasury Department. "I do believe we are at or near the bottom."

"It doesn't pose a risk to the economy overall," he said.

FLASH: Treasury Secretary Paulson says housing crash over, everything fine. RELATED NEWS: Iraq war going great, US debt paid off, global warming over

I think it's entertaining to watch the worst Presidential administration in the history of the United States do their thing. They keep on shocking and surprising with their incompetence and mismanagement.

But at the same time, it's so sad. So very sad.

Folks, your leadership is clueless, incompetent, corrupt and negligent. This cozy little club lies with such ease, it's borderline psychopathic.

Here's Hank, trying to sell Americans a bill of goods. Note to Hank - they're not buying. And if you haven't read it, HP recommends Manias, Panics and Crashes. Idiot.

Paulson: Housing slump likely near end

WASHINGTON - The major slump in the housing market is nearing an end and should not have a significant impact on the overall economy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday.

Paulson refused to comment specifically on the market impact of troubles confronting two large Bear Stearns hedge funds that invested heavily in subprime mortgages — loans made to borrowers with spotty credit histories.

"We have had a major housing correction in this country," Paulson said in an interview with a small group of reporters at the Treasury Department. "I do believe we are at or near the bottom."

Paulson said he realized there would be losses along the way but said he believed those losses have been "largely contained."

"It doesn't pose a risk to the economy overall," he said.

Warning: This article will totally bum you out - "Blood bath", "recession", "prices going lower", "there isn't a recovery"

A year and a half of doing HP, 3,000+ posts later, I think this is the ugliest article I've ever posted.

And the most spot-on. Hat-tip Richard for the link.

Get ready HP'ers. The days of spin, hype, cheerleading and "we've hit bottom" are over.

We've only just begun...

June 20 (Bloomberg) -- The worst is yet to come for the U.S. housing market.

The jump in 30-year mortgage rates by more than a half a percentage point to 6.74 percent in the past five weeks is putting a crimp on borrowers with the best credit just as a crackdown in subprime lending standards limits the pool of qualified buyers. The national median home price is poised for its first annual decline since the Great Depression, and the supply of unsold homes is at a record 4.2 million, the National Association of Realtors reported.

``It's a blood bath,'' said Mark Kiesel, executive vice president of Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., the manager of $668 billion in bond funds. ``We're talking about a two- to three-year downturn that will take a whole host of characters with it, from job creation to consumer confidence. Eventually it will take the stock market and corporate profit.''

``It's not just a housing recession anymore, it looks more and more like an economic recession,'' said Nouriel Roubini, a Clinton administration Treasury Department director and economic adviser who now runs Roubini Global Economics in New York.

``There isn't a recovery about to happen,'' said Ara Hovnanian, chief executive officer of Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., the Red Bank, New Jersey-based homebuilder. The company's stock tumbled 42 percent this year through yesterday.

``When all these people see their mortgage payment and it's up 40 or 50 percent, they're going to say, `We can't stay in this house,''' Pimco's Kiesel said. ``And there are millions of people in this situation.''

Roubini predicts the decline in U.S. home sales will last at least another 12 months, reducing the median house price by 5 percent this year and next. That would take home prices back to 2004, when the national median was $195,200.

Some owners are selling their homes at ``fire sale'' prices to avoid foreclosure after seeing their adjustable mortgage rates spike, said Lawrence White, an economics professor at the Stern School of Business.

``Prices will continue to soften for as long as we have distressed sellers,'' White said. Some regions of the U.S. could see price declines of 10 percent in the next six to 12 months, he said

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?

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.

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

So when Time magazine FINALLY puts the housing crash on the cover...

Does anyone find it weird that the housing crash was the biggest business story in 2006 (per the AP), and has completely overtaken the MSM and the dinner table for the past six months or so - nearly every day in the USA Today, Financial Times, Arizona Republic, New York Times, etc....

And yet Time magazine has done almost zero housing crash or subprime disaster reporting. And when they do it's a fluff piece or terrible reporting. And not a single cover since their now-hilarious going goo-goo for housing piece.

So what's up? Are they embarrassed? Are they corrupt? Or are they just Bush-like-incompetent? Does Time Warner take so much REIC advertising $$ that they don't want to admit the truth? Does Richard Parsons, Time Warner CEO, have some kind of strange REIC connection?

Something just doesn't make sense. Every issue for the past year should have had an article about the housing bubble / housing crash / REIC meltdown / subprime disaster. And at least four or five covers by now.

So what the hell is going on?

When Time FINALLY puts the housing crash on the cover, any predictions on what it'll say?

Do Greenspan, Bernanke, Lereah, Retsinas, Toll and now Yellen think we're buying their bullsh*t?

Yes, disinformation, spin, lying and distortion are in their job description. And yes, the MSM doesn't actually "report" anymore, they just copy and paste.

But good god, how dumb do these people think we are? We're in the second inning of a nine inning game and they say it's over. Not.

Here's the latest BS from a Fed member - Janet Yellen, Fed SF president. You won't believe this one. Either she's stupid, a liar or corrupt. Take your pick.

Note to Yellen and friends - you can't spin your way out of a ponzi scheme or financial mania unwinding and crash. This will run its course. No matter what BS you spout. You will look like a fool next year for quotes like these.

Federal Reserve's Yellen is sleeping better - Says she's less worried about possible housing bust

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, is sleeping better than she was a year ago, thanks to signs of stabilization in the housing market.

Still, her slumber is occasionally disturbed by worries about inflation, she said after a speech in Santa Clara, Calif. on Wednesday.

Last year, when it looked like the housing downturn could turn into a bust that risked tipping the broader economy into recession, Yellen said she found it more difficult to sleep.

But Yellen said she has noted recent signs of stabilization in the housing market and slim evidence that housing's slowdown has spilled into other parts of the economy.

"I'm waking up less at night than I was," she said. "So far, there's been remarkably little effect on the rest of the economy."

"We're not stepping on the brakes as hard as policy makers have done in the past," she said.

The NAR is still serving the Kool-Aid. Anyone want another sip?

Liars. Scoundrels. Terrible businessmen. Discredited hacks. Watching the NAR implode at the same time housing implodes is quite poetic, wouldn't you say HP'ers?

I think the only ones still drinking their Kool-Aid are the rip-and-read MSM, and even many of them are starting to actually think before they write. Not all of 'em, but some. It's a start.

But here's the reporter at Realty Times allowing the NAR spinmeisters to serve more unfiltered Mountainberry Punch! Hey Kool-Aid!

NAR Says Existing Home Sales Have Hit Bottom

Despite wailing from banks that late or non-payments on sub-prime loans are sinking their profits, continuing fear from homebuyers that they're catching a falling knife, and predictions from housing analysts that the pain is far from over, the outlook looks sunny for housing, says the National Association of Realtors.

Analysts say that a number of causes kept buyers away including affordability, the financial media, rising gas prices, rising mortgage interest rates, and buyers' fear of becoming "the greater fool."

Housing bulls suggest that the drop in housing sales is primarily due to fear -- that housing fundamentals are actually better now than they were during record housing conditions.

David Lereah, NAR's chief economist, said it appears the fourth quarter was the bottom for the current housing cycle.

"This information confirms 2006 was the year of contraction, and hopefully the fourth quarter was the bottom of this current business cycle," he said. "Home sales are leveling at historically high levels, and examination of data within the quarter shows home prices stabilizing toward the end. When we get the figures for this spring, I expect to see a discernible improvement in both sales and prices."

NAR President Pat V. Combs: "Since the typical owner stays in a home for six years, it's more useful to look at the five-year comparison for metro area home prices -- most of them are seeing strong gains,"

HousingPANIC urges the real estate clerks of America to rebel against the NAR and demand the firing of The Corrupt David Lereah

It should now be painfully obvious, my underemployed, nothing to do, ramen-eating real estate clerk friends, that the NAR and The Corrupt David Lereah (TCDL) are no longer your friends. Their actions and activities are actually HURTING YOU, not helping you.

You are paying dues to, and still publicly supporting, an organization and it's spokesman who has made your profession a laughingstock, and "REALTOR(TM)" the least-trustworthy position in America. Yes, you are now lower than Catholic priests and stockbrokers I'd say. And that's tough to do my friends. Tough to do.

So it's time for the real estate clerks of America to rebel. Start an online petition (maybe firedavidlereah.com?) calling for the immediate dismissal of NAR Liar in Chief TCDL, and demand an apology to the American people for the continuous lies and distortion that spewed out of the NAR during the mania and subsequent collapse.

Yes, TCDL is paid to do the NAR's dirty work, to lie, to spin and to distort. Yes, he made a deal with the devil and now has a lifetime to answer for his evil deeds. But every day he stays at the NAR is like another day of the GOP hanging on to Tom DeLay. And you know where that led...

I don't expect real estate clerks to take my advice. Collectively your brain power is a bit low obviously, as your morals are too. But I'll give you this advice for free.

Real estate clerks, and the NAR, are now a joke. America will blame you for the housing crash. You have screwed people time and time again, people who TRUSTED YOU, people whose interests you were supposed to represent, all for that big commission check.

You can atone for your mistakes and evil deeds. And you can start with a house cleaning at the NAR, and the firing of your Iraqi Information Minister.

Or you continue to be seen as a joke, and eventually just whither and slither away. Which is what I think will happen in the end unless we see radical change, and soon.

Peace out. I hear Safeway is having a sale on ramen by the way.

Different professions vary greatly in how much they are trusted to give their clients or patients good advice. According to a recent Harris Poll measuring U.S. adults’ trust in 11 different professions to give advice that is best for them, the professionals trusted completely by the greatest number of adults are doctors (50%), dentists (47%), and nurses (46%). At the other end of the list, those with the fewest adults saying they trust them completely are stockbrokers (6%), real estate agents (7%) and insurance agents (9%).