From HousingPANIC: Real Economist (NOT Lawrence Yun) Quotes of Brilliance

"No one is buying into their Kool-Aid; that's why prices are falling"

- Paul Kasriel, chief economist with Northern Trust in Chicago, questioned the Realtors' assessment that this is a good time to enter the market, saying weak sales and prices suggest that potential buyers are smart to be sitting on the sidelines right now.

Lawrence Yun points out that a 70% crash in new household formation is "very unusual". Nice job Larry! Master of the obvious!

When homes get so expensive that nobody can afford a home, guess what?

New household formation plummets and home prices crash.

Ya gotta wonder if Lawrence Yun ever actually took an economics class. I have my doubts...

The number of people who are moving in with friends or family, or sharing apartments or houses to save money, has caught economists at the Realtors association off-guard. The growth in "new households" — first-time buyers or first-time renters — has plunged 70% from last year's rate.

"This is very unusual," says Lawrence Yun, the NAR's senior economist. "Even during a recession, household formations do not slow to this current level."

Yun says rising apartment rents will create housing turnaround in 2008. Not a chance in hell Larry, and you know it

The US home vacancy rate is soaring like never before, as millions of unwanted and unneeded homes pile up and desperate homedebtors look for renters.

Rents will tumble, and Lawrence Yun is as much an economist as George Bush is a scientist.

Home builders are suffering right now. But Yun says that means they'll slow construction and remove the excess inventory that's depressing prices. He says new buyers are moving into the pipeline, too.

Lawrence Yun: We have seen rising apartment rents, so that is beginning to squeeze those people who are renting. Also at the same time, we have seen rising mortgage purchase applications.

The Confused Lawrence Yun's quote of the day

''Housing will continue to be a drag to economic growth all the way through 2008"

First time home buyers plummet 70%. Yun actually points it out. Recession anyone? Housing crash everyone?

Big drop in new household formation in Yun's numbers today. And nice to see Yun being called "crafty". He he he.

Here's Diana Olick's report:

Existing home sales in May were essentially flat, down just 0.3% from April and down 10.3% from a year ago. Prices also continue to drop for the tenth straight month, down 2.1% and inventories continue to rise, now to an 8.9-month supply. A pretty bland housing report all in all, except for a strange new number slipped into the middle of the report by that crafty NAR Senior Economist, Lawrence Yun. This mention, to me at least, is the real nugget that the 94 talking heads we’ll see on TV today will inevitably miss.

Household Formation. What’s that? It’s first time homebuyers. Whether it’s young professionals, new families, or new investors, none of these people, well, a lot less than usual, are jumping into the market. Household formation is down 70% (!) in the first quarter of this year from last year. On an annualized basis, it’s less than 500,000, which Yun calls, “rare.” You only see that in a real economic recession.

And here's what Yun said:

Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, said the market softness is understandable. “I think psychological factors are currently the biggest drag on the housing market, in addition to a disruption from tighter credit for subprime borrowers,” he said. “Household formation has slowed dramatically since late 2006, implying that many people are doubling-up – they’re adding roommates or moving in with parents.

And here's a website people are using until the housing crash is over

http://www.couchsurfing.com/

It's official - Lawrence Yun is a distorting, deceptive spinmeister, just like TCDL

It didn't take TCLY long to pick up for TCDL. You wonder if there's a training class for NAR "economists" - called "how to lie, deceive, distort and spin".

When's the book coming out Larry? Maybe "Housing Crash My Ass - Why Housing Prices Will Soar! - The Fundamentals Don't Matter" or something like that.

I could just imagine the scene of this realtor luncheon (brown bags - nice. Ramen noodles next time?). And there you have Larry Yun, tellin' 'em what they want to hear. Versus this little thing called 'the truth' that most of us would expect to hear from an 'economist'.

Folks, the NAR is a discredited joke of an institution, run by monkeys, and now represented by TCLY.

He's down on the mat, he's bloody, the fans are booing. But can the Tampa Bay area housing market rise from the arena as the Comeback Kid?

You can bet the house on it, said Lawrence Yun, senior economist at the National Association of Realtors.

Yun was appointed last month as the top economic spokesman for the Washington-based Realtors group. He succeeded economist David Lereah, discredited after maintaining rosy outlooks amid an increasingly troubled housing market and promoting his 2005 book, Are You Missing The Real Estate Boom - Why Home Values and Other Real Estate Investments Will Climb Through the End of the Decade.

In a slide show Thursday to the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, Yun delivered a message of short-term pain leading to long-term gain.

"Five years from now you will be very happy you're in this business and located in Tampa," Yun said over a brown-bag lunch to about 75 real estate agents.

In Yun's view, rising incomes and declining home prices ought to have stimulated sales this year were it not for housing bubble scares in the media.

In one worst-case scenario, an economist suggested the gap between incomes and home prices would depress housing values 40 percent.

Yun scoffed at the idea: The real measure of affordability, he said citing a formula, is mortgage obligation relative to income. He clicked a slide showing Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater hovering at the national average. Much of California isn't so lucky, nor is high-priced Miami and Naples.

"It's very, very manageable. Nothing alarming in this region," Yun said.