Another home price forecast
CNN is reporting where home prices are headed in typical alarmist fashion, down and much cheaper.
But the good news is that Charleston appears to be spared the pain predicted for some other cities.
With Fiserv predicting prices nationally to decline by another 11%, the Charleston metro area is projected to only drop by 1.7% by June of next year and are actually expected to increase by 2.7% in the following year.
But Jay Thompson, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy in obviously hard hit Phoenix made this point on CNN's coverage of the report by Fiserv.
"... no link to the report, no opportunity to review Fiserv’s data or methodology ... For all we know, these guys used an Ouija board and a Magic Eight Ball to help with their remarkably precise predictions ... It’s not Fiserv’s predictions that annoy me here. It is the lame reporting of this “analysis” that is bothersome. The mainstream media loves to use words like “plummet”, “plunge”, and “tumble” to describe the housing market."
Well, I'll get my Ouija board out and make this prediction, if Congress simply lets the homebuyer tax credit expire and doesn't expand it to include all homebuyers, when dismal numbers get reported in the December through February period, Washington will be scrambling to do something to prop up the housing industry once again. Can you say cash for clunkers.