Can a Man With No Credibility Ever Become Credible?
Author: Jonathan DaltonPosted on December 29, 2008
Filed Under NAR - Forecasts
File this one under “no kidding.”
David Lereah, one-time chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS, told Money Magazine that he was spinning like a top while issuing press releases during his tenure with NAR:
If you look at my actual forecasts, the numbers were right inline with most forecasts. The difference was that I put a positive spin on it It was easy to do during boom times, harder when times weren’t good. I never thought the whole national real estate market would burst.
But here’s the best part. Dave, author of “Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom,” now disagrees with NAR’s forecast of a slight increase in home prices in 2009.
My views are quite different now. I’m pretty bearish and have been for the past year and a half. Home prices will continue to drop. I think we’ll see a very modest recovery in sales activity in 2009. But we’ve still got excess inventories, a bad economy and a credit crunch that will push prices down further, another 5% to 10% more. It’ll take a long time to get back to the peak prices we saw in many markets.
Did NAR hand Dave back his credibility when he left, akin to a felon getting back his personal belongings on his way out of prison? Does the mere fact that Dave’s dissing NAR’s current forecast leave anyone else inclined to believe Larry Yun?
(Note: I don’t believe Larry Yun, either. But if Dave Lereah told me the sky was blue, I’d be inclined to lay money that it was in fact chartreuse.)
Naturally, the bubble blogs lit up like Christmas trees with this pronouncement which in itself is entertaining since the basic premise there is that people were buying homes based solely on what Dave had to say.
One last note from between the lines. Says Lereah,
I worked for an association promoting housing, and it was my job to represent their interests.
Anyone else read that as saying Dave felt his job was in jeopardy if he didn’t keep up the lies spin during his tenure? And if it was in jeopardy, maybe we ought to be asking from whom and why.
After all, the day truth becomes the enemy is they day nearly all will be lost.
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[...] any event, I wrote a little more fully on the topic over at NAR Wisdom (more likely than not, to Jay’s surprise. It’s been a while since I’ve written [...]
Glad to see “Baghdad Bob of Real Estate” is back. Laurence Yun may have the bovine excrement spewing mastered, but he’s not near as entertaining.