Thursday, October 11, 2007

No Yun! Speculative Prices Still Exist

“‘The speculative excesses have been removed from the market and home sales are returning to fundamentally healthy levels, while prices remain near record highs, reflecting favorable mortgage rates and positive job gains,’ Yun said.”

In bubble markets across the country, speculative excesses not only occurred in terms of the number of housing units sold, but also the prices are speculative. The speculative excesses cannot be removed unless real dollar prices fall much more in bubble markets. Stopping spinning Yun! Accept the harsh reality of the declining housing market, that is a long way from bottom.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm an independent mortgage professional in the Los Angeles area on the front lines of this fiasco. I too am astonished that the majority of my colleagues are in denial. I was just reading an article on the NAR website. Unbelievable non-sense that "the mortgage market bodes well in 2008". Here is the url: http://www.realtor.org/press_room/index.html

What planet do these people live on? I understand it's important to keep a positive outlook. But at what cost and who is ultimately paying for it? I'm an optimist by nature. However, numbers don't lie. If the NAR had any formal education they too would see the inevitable.

How could they in good conscious sell anybody a home right now? Has everybody forgotten our fiduciary duty to protect the client or do the right thing? I guess ETHICS have gone out the door across the board.

Anonymous said...

More Ying yang from Yun.

You sir are a disgrace.

Buyer revolt against the NAR!

Anonymous said...

NY Times article from March 18, 2003 (http://tinyurl.com/yo7hck):

"While housing economists don't expect sales activity and price appreciation to continue at last year's pace, the market will stay near historic levels this year and next, said Lawrence Yun, a senior economist with the National Association of Realtors.

The year started strongly. Existing home sales in January were at an all-time record, rising 2.2 percent higher than January 2002, which itself had record sales, the realtors association reported."

Apparently Yun thought that 2003 and 2004 would be plateau years but not as hot as 2002. But I guess I'm making all this up, as Yun is never wrong, and his predictions for 2007, 2008, and beyond will be correct every year, right?

Anonymous said...

I have to add that the current mortgage crisis feels toooo eerily familiar to the S&L Crisis and Junk Bond crisis of the 1980s.

Here are the urls:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_Loan_crisis
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Milken

It's the same scenarios all over again, only much much worse. You would think, really, that with all of the intelligencia of the world, we would have learned something anything from that experience.

Selling a home today is like the Junk Bond King selling Junk Bonds to unsuspecting senior citizens or like unscrupulous stockbrokers pushing penny stocks to senior citizens.

Where and when do we draw the line? When are we really going to make a difference? When are we going to stop the rhetoric and do the right thing for q public?

Anonymous said...

For everybody who needs to be reminded, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia.org of what Fiduciary Duty really means.

"A fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care imposed at either equity or law. A fiduciary is expected to be extremely loyal to the person to whom they owe the duty (the "principal"): they must not put their personal interests before the duty, and must not profit from their position as a fiduciary, unless the principal consents. The fiduciary relationship is highlighted by good faith, loyalty and trust, and the word itself originally comes from the Latin fides, meaning faith, and fiducia."

Get more information at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary

I hope whoever is responsible for overseeing real estate and lending practices will take this to heart. Whoever is at the top or head of any organization is deemed a role model for everybody beneath him/her. I'm sure everybody has heard the old adage, actions speak louder than words. Well now would be a good time.

Anonymous said...

Do not listen to realwhores.

Buyers on strike until prices drop to rational levels.!

Start getting prices down W$%$#S and maybe you can make a commission.

holbrookjp said...

What really sucks is that is at least in my area DC, MD and VA is that brokers require you as a licensed RE agent to be part or these of this political lobby basically. NAR is not for Realtors but for big business and political favors.

We have to pay all this mandatory money every year to support these goofs in DC and Chicago.