It’s the same thing now that the real estate (and credit) bubbles have now popped. If you are foolish enough to listen to Gary and people like him, don’t say that you weren’t warned.

this guy knew the market, even showed us comments he made in the register for the past sixteen months saying things were really wrong. the real hook was quoted in Dec 31 2006 in the register that over spending and people over borrowing we going to bring the market down hard.

mac seems to know the market why not get his forcast and thoughts. he sure save us a lot of cash by selling before the real hit.

Truth is, he is brilliant and if you listen to him, you can make a lot of money investing in real estate. If not, then continue along your miserable way.

Of course now he’s actually banned by law from making financial predictions.

I wonder what’s in gary’s future?

All markets correct after huge appreciation spikes; no exceptions. All the, “its different this time” is the classic stage of denial.

Surfer X: I think you have repressed stiffy for White genXers with cute haircuts…

“Houses cost too much for the mass market. Today’s average price is around $8,000 -out of the reach for two-thirds of all buyers.” -Science Digest, 1948

“The goal of owning a home seems to be getting beyond the reach of more and more Americans. The typical new house today costs about $28,000.” -Business Week,1969

“You might well be suspicious of ‘common wisdom’ that tells you, ‘Don’t wait, buy now.. .continuing inflation will force home prices and rents higher and higher.’” -NEA Journal, 1970

“The median price of a home today is approaching $50,000.. .. Housing experts predict price rises in the future won’t be that great.”-Nations Business, 1977

“The era of easy profits in real estate may be drawing to a close.” – Money Magazine, 1981

“The golden-age of risk-free run-ups in home prices is gone.” – Money Magazine, 1985

“Most economists agree.. . [a home] will become little more than a roof and a tax deduction, certainly not the lucrative investment it was through much of the 1980′s.” – Money Magazine, 1986

“Financial planners agree that houses will continue to be a poor investment.”
- Kiplinger’s Personal Financial Magazine, 1993

“A home is where the bad investment is.” -San Francisco Examiner, 1996

Gary Eldred,”106 Mistakes Home Buyers Make -and How You Can Avoid Them”.

This stuff is nothing new.

A pumper? Is that like a fluffer?

Well, I’ve never heard it used that way, but I suppose that a baby could sleep in a 4000 sq ft. mansion but I don’t understand what that has to do with the discussion.

j/k

KRIBZ.

Isn’t a crib something a baby sleeps in? Not repeat NOT where an ADULT lives?

The sooner they die the sooner we can crunch over their emaciated corpses and seize their kribz.

Like in the movie Apocalypse Now… “Stand back – THIS IS GOING to be a BIG ONE!”

Actually, no.

Most people here know prices are unsustainable (mighty change from a year ago) and most are realizing that it’s actually to their advantage if they go down. Pretty much the only people who benefit from rising prices are CEOs of major home builders, real estate agents, and loan brokers. (OK, I once again just described 80% of Orange County).

No, rising home prices only make it so that your next house is even more expensive and taxes are outrageous (even with low interest rates, it’s too bad that tax rates didn’t follow the same tragectory)

The fact that we’re selfish little whiners is more a product of our selfish whining “bong-huffing boomer” (your words, not mine) parents that taught us the pleasures of a fine whine; and not so much a product of our MTV KRIBZ culture. (although, that would be true of South Central, it’s not really the case in Laguna Niguel)

Besides, what puts the sting on it all is that we see ourselves in 5 years never attaining those 5 years older than we are. Gary Watts is just the jerk to pour the salt in our open wounds. He’s one of the bong-huffing boomers we love to hate.

I’ll bet there aint one fuckin’ bubblehead that aint a little white IT / MS bitch boy with a perfect little haircut, made more so with haircare fuckin products for that perfect I-don’t-give-a-shit look which really says give-me-what-want-or-I-just-might-cry. Throw in some student loan, car loan, and plastic payment stress and we do what we’ve always done – demand someone fix things for us.

It could just be that there is us, and there is the market – and the market is right, whether we like it or not.

NAWWWWWW!!

The market is fucked and needs to revert back to where we can buy the cribs we fuckin deserve.

maybe all will learn a little humility when this thing is over.

Gary Watts was just interviewed on the OC Register RE blog.

He is starting to let humility in with his hail mary reasons why it is still different this time.

Find it here:

http://blogs.ocregister.com/la......html#more

Here is another post from the OCR blog that explains his or anyone’s uncanncy ability to forecast RE.

FUN WITH NUMBERS! How to forecast the housing market like a pro.

The real estate industry loves to predict home price appreciation (8-11% for 2006 cited in current OC Register story) and they pat themselves on the back for their Kreskin-like abilities. But predicting home appreciation is much like predicting where a cruise ship will be in an hour. If you stand on the bow and point straight ahead, you will be right most of the time.

Here’s a Step-by-step guide on how to forecast the housing market like a true real estate analyst:

Step 1: Look at yearly appreciation for the past three months as reported by DataQuick. Use this as your prediction for home sale appreciation over the next 12 months. There is no Step 2. The chart below shows how these predictions compare to Gary Watts over the past 5 years:

3 Mo. Ave. Watts Actual
2002…..12.5%……10.0%…16.8%
2003…..17.9%……15.0%…19.1%
2004…..18.2%……25.0%…24.8%
2005…..20.9%……15.0%…13.6%
2006…..13.5%……15-18%..?

As you can see, the 3 month average beat Mr. Watts 2 of the past 4 years and it looks like 2006 may provide another forecasting victory. I am clearly a FORECASTING GENIUS.

To improve my forecasts I’ve considered adding inventory, sales and other data to the analysis. But why bother? I am not in the real estate industry and have no incentive to create a better MARKETING STATISTIC.

The problem with real estate forecasts is that they tell us very little about what’s going to happen to real estate prices in the upcoming year because they are based on old data—a comparison of the median price from one year to the median price of the next year. Here’s the problem:

The market price of homes at the start of 2006 was already 5.75% higher than the 2005 median—compare $585k ave. monthly median for 2005 (per the OC Register) to Dec. 2005 median price of $621k per DataQuick. You can use other numbers if you wish, but the results are the same—the forecasters are playing with a stacked deck. Much of the predicted home appreciation is already built into the market. For example, a forecast of 8% home appreciation is really a forecast of 2.25% home appreciation if based on prices at the beginning of the year.

To illustrate the absurdity of real estate forecasts and press releases consider a scenario where prices FALL from the Dec. 2005 median of $621k to a Dec. 2006 median of $608k, with a 2006 median price of $616k. Who would be right, those who predicted a 2% drop in home prices for 2006 or those who predicted an 5% rise in home prices? I would expect to see the following reports from real estate professionals in January 2007:

MEDIAN PRICE HITS RECORD HIGH OF $616K IN 2006!
HOME PRICES APPRECIATE 5% IN 2006!

Of course, the homebuyer who purchased in Dec. 2005 and sold in Dec. 2006 would have lost 2%. But hey, people are bad at math. If we repeatedly tell them they gained 5% they will believe it.

Posted by: BubbleAnalyst at March 15, 2006 11:35 AM

Besides, it’s his smugness that we hate about him. All he needs now is a Prius and he’ll start polluting our city with smug.

POOT! SNIFF! Aaaahhhhhhhhhh…