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IPFS News Link • Housing

The National Association Of Realtors Has Become A Propaganda Factory

• forums.wallstreetexaminer.com
 
Like all of the NAR data, that's a bald faced lie. Sales were down 120,000 units month to month (30%) to 284,000, and I'm pretty sure even that's a lie. How they used a seasonal adjustment to turn that into a gain, I can't imagine. Who's running that mob, Kakadaffy? It's simply incredible that they would post this kind of garbage after getting caught having massively fudged the data for years.This was national news over the past few days. Have these people no shame? Let's do a little comparison. Sales were down 138,000 last January, but that was in the vacuum that followed the expiration of the first taxpayer gift to homesellers that caused buyers to stampede into the market and overpay at taxpayer expense. In January 2009, at the absolute bottom of the crash phase of this collapse, sales were down 104,000. This year is worse than that. In January 2008 they were only down by 82,000. This year was much worse than that. In January 2007 sales were down by 107,000. Again this year was worse. Somehow, these shameless buffoons managed to take this years drop of 120,000 and say with a straight face that it was a gain. Here's another shocker which the NAR conveniently failed to mention in its press release. The median sale price fell to $158,000, which was a month to month drop of 6%! By following real time listing prices, I have been able to warn readers of the Professional Edition Housing Report for months that prices have been crashing since last August. The NAR data is finally catching up. This is the lowest level that prices have been throughout this collapse. Prices are now down 13.2% from the June peak when reported prices were distorted by the taxpayers gift. It is a disgrace that this price distortion was barely discussed at the time. I was screaming about it. As an old real estate appraiser, I knew that once the tax credit was removed the recorded prices would collapse. The price that buyers would pay never changed. The higher prices reported last summer were completely bogus, an illusion. Now price has returned to trend, and seems to be gaining downward momentum.