Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Chuck Ponzi April 29th, 2008
USA Today had a very interesting roundtable discussion of housing. There were some very interesting (and wrong) opinions put forth, however I was more than delighted at some of the quotes of Lawrence Yun’s (Chief Economist of the National Association of Realtors), and successor to the discredited David Lereah (Pronounced LI-AR).
Here are some truly astounding quotes he gave to USA Today:
Lawrence Yun:Â Consumers need to find out what is going on at the local level and not necessarily take national headline numbers as a point of reference. Sellers tend to be more stubborn in facing the reality of the market, so people who really need to sell need to come down on prices, given the high inventory and seller competition.
and
Yun: If home equity is used for investment — including college education — then returns will be worth it. If home-equity loans are used for frivolous spending, then consumers are just eating away their retirement savings and will regret it later.
and
Yun:Â The Fed should stop the rate cuts. If inflation gets out of the bottle, it will introduce a host of new problems.
Of course the usual crap is there: 2008 second-half better than first-half… we’ve turned a corner… buyers should get in now… etc.  However, this is just a regurgitation of 2006 and 2007 party lines, it’s a wash, rinse, repeat cycle that the NAR spins every year, but I suspect that the general perception of the group as a self-serving fear-mongering team that uses hard-sell tactics to bully people into buying homes is getting to the general psyche there. I wouldn’t be surprised to see their comments about homeownership soften in coming years. I would at least hope so, and if they don’t do it themselves, we perhaps need some additional regulation of the real estate group. Once we see real estate as an investment, and no longer as a cost-minimization plan, we need to treat it as such.
