Denial is a river in Eqypt, part 2
In my post last week, Denial is a river in Egypt, I wondered whether the National Association of Realtors (NAR) had any credibility with the public any more. “First we had the Laughable Lereah with his misguided pronouncements and now newly promoted Larry (the Yuckster) Yun seems to be in denial regarding the current conditions in the housing market.” Do you really think the public can be bamboozled by PR driven misinformation?
Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture, “The trade association (NAR) is notorious for their ever-sunny forecasts and steadfast denial of the housing bust…By emphasizing the monthly data, the NAR chose to ignore their own methodology for interpreting the Index…The NAR continues as a source of amusement.”
Jonathan Dalton at Dalton’s Arizona Homes features Noah Rosenblatt at Urban Digs with his quote of the week. “It’s just so sad, it really is. JM [Jonathan Miller] is dead on and I just don’t get why the NAR is so afraid to be unbiased and acknowledge what is really going on in the world of real estate. This is one very big reason why real estate agents have a bad reputation!”
Noah says, “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 the same trade group that was once headed by David Lereah, you remember, the poster boy for 'everything is OK' as the national housing market went into free fall. In Mr. Lereah's own words, "It's a great time to BUY & it's a great time to SELL"! That one was the best. Hmmm, a great time to buy and a great time to sell is what the head of a real estate agent trade group is telling us! Talk about losing credibility as head of a group of people that earn their salaries on transaction commissions.”
And Jonathan Miller at Matrix, “Not a month goes by that Larry doesn’t say housing is getting better and that mortgage problems are temporary.”
I'll stand by my comment, Denial is a river in Egypt.