If your local weatherman forecasted sunny days for five days running, and it rained on every one of them, you would start carrying an umbrella, no matter how rosy the forecast.  Then if he started forecasting light rain, you'd probably carry a bigger, stronger umbrella and wear a rain suit.  You'd expect the worst.
    The forecasts by National Association of Realtors economists are consistently all wet.  Month after month they make the wrong call on the pace of existing home sales, then they revise and - wrong again - revise yet another time.  Yesterday the group amended its prior month's prediction of a 2.2 percent drop in existing home sales for this year; they now are expecting a 4.6 percent drop.  In terms of new home sales forecasts, the NAR amended its forecast from a 14.2 percent drop to 18.2 percent.  It is a good thing for NAR members that, like politics, real estate sales are essentially local, and that they can ignore their own trade organization's misleading predictions.   

    The NAR also predicted yesterday that the median price for existing homes will drop 1.3 percent this year, almost double their .7 percent forecast in April.  In the grand tradition of NAR's recently departed chief economist, David Lereah, winner of our Pollyanna Award for consistently wrong and overly optimistic guessing on the housing market, NAR Senior Economist Lawrence Yum said yesterday that sales of homes in lower-priced markets have been stronger, which dragged down median prices; he expects this "temporary distortion" to be neutralized by next year, when he calls for a 1.7 increase in median prices.  Keep your galoshes on.

    Footnote:  All real estate is local, and the southeastern markets are still holding up pretty well, especially homes adjacent to or near a golf course.  Our oft-repeated advice if you are considering a relocation from north to south - or from the UK to the U.S., for that matter - is to compare sales data in your market with sales data in the market you might want to move to, and check the spread.  Our radar says the northern markets will take longer to regain their footing than the southern markets, and the spread between them may never be as narrow as it is now.  Depending on your personal circumstances, you may not want to hold out for the best possible price on your primary home.  You might get it eventually, but the price of the next home you want could have appreciated faster.