Dalton Gets the Years Last Laugh

Courtesy of NAR Chief Economist Larry Yun

Best wishes for all for a very happy, safe and prosperous 2008.

My one resolution for this blog is to post more frequently…

Some Interesting Commentary from *Outside* the RE.net on NAR Forecasts

As real estate professionals and webloggers, we often tend to get sucked into our little corner of the world. We all have our opinions of NAR forecasts, be that good, bad or indifferent. I happen to believe it is good to step outside the real estate world and take a look at how those who don’t sell real estate for a living perceive things…

The NAR’s Sunshine Boys - via Popmatters.com

You can’t trust anything their forecasters say.

This is apparent to anyone who follows developments in the housing industry in the business press, yet the business press continues to report their meaningless sunshiny accounts of the economy as though it constitutes news, discrediting other analysts across the board. Journalosts could get much more reputable numbers from the National Association of Home Builders, a trade association rather than a sales association, with less of an agenda in its forecasts.

This post refers to an article on Slate — Worst. Forecasters. Ever? The cockeyed optimists of the National Association of Realtors — that was posted on December 10.

And speaking of the Slate article, last week Daniel Gross, the author of that piece, held an online Q&A on the Washington Post:

Slate columnist Daniel Gross was online on Washingtonpost.com on Dec. 13, 2007, to discuss the National Association of Realtors’ sunny report on the housing market and other financial topics. An unedited transcript of the chat follows.

Here is the link to the transcript. This is very interesting reading folks…

Calculated Risk on the 2008 NAR Forecast

Calculated Risk (a fabulous blog BTW), just posted a little analysis of the NAR’s 2008 housing sales forecast, complete with spiffy charts.

Their take?

Based on slowing turnover rate and tighter lending standards, we can probably already say the NAR forecast of 5.7 million units in ‘08 is way too high.

Looking forward to their forecast…

Noah Calls Out NAR “Predictions”

The ever brilliant Noah Rosenblatt digs into the NAR’s always rosy, often incorrect housing market predictions.

“. . . lets check in on the NAR’s track record for the past 12 months or so. The NAR has unsuccessfully predicted housing trends for 70% of 2007! For the past 9 months, count ‘em NINE MONTHS, the NAR had to downwardly revise their housing predictions; which were unsurprisingly too bullish.”

This is required reading folks.

Quote of the Day

Does NAR have what it takes to create a nationwide MLS? Sadly, probably not. The real estate industry has been playing catch-up with technology over the last several years, and NAR with it’s 99 years of baggage, has been the slowest to evolve. NAR acknowledges their lumbering pace to embrace technology, but they are still missing the mark stating that their nationwide MLS will only be for Realtors, not the general public.

From Robert Nield at The Phoenix Real Estate Technology Exchange Blog.

The linked video in Robert’s post is from Inman’s Real Estate Connect in San Francisco. It’s 51 minutes long, but well worth a look. It’s a “Connect Duet” between Dale Stinton, NAR CEO and Rich Barton, co-founder of Zillow.com.

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