The opposite of the "sky is falling"

    I know I am guilty of harping about how real estate industry economists drink their own bath water.  But when they drink each other's, it is especially distasteful, sickening really.
    There is no better example than an online column by Kenneth Harney of Realty Times dated December 31.  Harney quotes "two of the nation's most prominent real estate economists," David Seiders of the National Association of Home Builders and Lawrence Yun of the National Association of Realtors.  When his heroes predict that the market will start to turn around in six months because all the bad mortgages have been flushed through the system ("unusual mortgage disruptions," Yun calls them) and, well, because their forecasts say the market will rebound, Harney espouses the bold theory that what goes down must go up.
    "...let's be frank," writes Harney, who is anything but.  "After such a run of down and bad numbers through most of 2006 and 2007, will it really be a big surprise if housing demand and sales and new construction finally begin showing signs of recovery -- even modest recovery -- in the year ahead?"
    Well, yes, it will be a big surprise, if you listen to most economists and rational business writers.  If you have the stomach for it, you can read the full text of Harney's blather at Realty Times.


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