There’s an interesting piece — warning, Politico link — about how the National Association of Realtors is planning to use Citizens United to fuck up the elections in 2012. In everyone’s rush to condemn the banksters, people sometimes forget what dumbasses the National Association of Realtors were in the lead-up to the financial meltdown. A friend sent me a long list of examples a few months ago. I’ll list a few with the rest after the break.
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This one’s a classic from early 2008. I love this quote “The economy is essentially stalled, but the second half will be better. Even if the economy formally goes into a recession, it will be one of the mildest recessions.” That’s right, don’t worry homebuyers! It’s just a little speedbump!!
link
So, even though by August 6th even McCain is starting to realize something is wrong, not our boy Lawrence Yun. He announces that contrary to data showing a 17% decline in home values, there are anecdotes out there from individuals saying that they don’t see a housing decline. So, does Yun look at the grim reality around him, or being the good economist does he stare at the index and back up his fellow economists? NO! Of course not, the old republican line about how the common man needs no help to understand the world from all these fancy book learning guys. “The bottom line seems to always be that consumers are smart and they know what they are talking about. Their perception indeed matches up with what may genuinely be happening in reality.” As the kids say now a days. OMG.
link
Wannasiri Chompoopet is clearly a person of great economic credentials, her published forecasts was for a Q4 of positive GDP growth after a Q3 of pretty good GDP growth. Seeing as how this was written on September 10th, with only 20 days of Q3 left (a Q3 that ends up negative) it’s kinda bizarre.
link
Our chief economist at the NAR is back at the helm. In Oct 10 OF THIS YEAR, this great line, the first indication that maybe we could be in a recession “The economy has been producing more, so we may not formally be in a recession. But we are dealing with semantics. Call it what you will, the economy is not sound.” Let’s not forget that Lehman went under 21 days earlier.
link
More positive messages! “Consumers are putting off their car purchases. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they may wait for their home purchases. Mortgage loans are still available at historically low rates, and housing affordability is favorable for many potential buyers”. Right, big purchases like cars consumers aren’t ready for, but a tiny thing like a house? Well, jump right in! Update, Q3 GDP now forecast at 0.0%, bumped up a notch. Seeing as how we’re already well into Q4, Oct 10th for this article, does this count as a forecast or revisionist history???
link
Lawrence Yun, my favorite yes man, is at it again. He has the fix for the economy! BUY MORE HOMES!!!! “The economy can be revived if homebuyers are given the incentive to buy a home and the mortgage interest buy-down will do that.” Now, why would he come out on Oct 31 and say that the solution to the economy is to incentivize people to buy houses, after months of saying the economy is just going through a bit of a bad spell? OHHHHHH, right, the TARP got passed on Oct 14th. A trillion dollars of money looking for a way to stimulate the economy. Ahhhh, yes, Mr Yun has the answer. Let’s get people buying houses!!
http://www.realtor.org/research/commentary_quick103108
And getting in the bailout spirit, Mr Yun announces that home prices are now perfectly priced and that a further degradation will harm the economy. Therefore, he recommends “mortgage rate buy-down, a home buyer tax credit, and a higher conforming loan limit”. Yes, more home loans for Americans with a bigger loan size. That’s what we need.
link
Feel free to surf all the propaganda here: link
eemom
Good Mr. DougJson, this looks like a fine interesting post — but I’m afraid you’ve been scooped by the KO-bomb.
beltane
Maybe people will figure out that the average realtor is not a professional anything, but is usually a poorly educated, unethical carnival barker looking to bullshit his or her way into getting a commission. There is nothing wrong with that per se except that Americans are way too trusting with regards to anyone who claims expertise in any field.
handy
That’s from King of America, no? I confess I’m not as familiar with Costello’s stuff after Punch the Clock, but this one I’m told is worth the listen.
John Dillinger
Dear god, this clown is scheduled to speak at my son’s high school:
http://www.bishopoconnell.org/page.cfm?p=676&newsid=211
JPL
You know who else would not have said
.KO and now he’s gone.
DougJ DougJson
@handy:
Yeah, it’s a great album. This is from Indoor Fireworks.
Tax Analyst
Heck, with that name I thought he (she?) might just be another DougJ sock puppet.
Tax Analyst
@beltane:
Yes, perhaps you’ve met his less well heeled brother, Mr. Used Car Salesman.
Edit: After screwing up a different thread I was spooked about using a hyphen between “well” and “heeled”.
JR in WV
Realtors who meet with people who need houses bought or sold are one thing … Realtors who pretend to be Federal Reserve economists and wind up sounding like they have the sense of a goat, that’s the reality. Almost a pun, isn’t it?
Southern Beale
Yeah, I wrote about that on the local level nearly three years ago. A big part of the problem here was that our local media decided the best person to write about the real estate market is … wait for it … the immediate past president of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors. Big shocker that all we got was a big snow job.
PeakVT
In everyone’s rush to condemn the banksters, people sometimes forget what dumbasses the National Association of Realtors were in the lead-up to the financial meltdown.
Have people forgotten, or did they just know all along that realtors were full of shit – pleasant-sounding shit that buyers wanted to hear.
Also, too: mortgage brokers.
KG
@PeakVT: mortgage brokers were the big culprits. Realtors, at least theoretically, understand that they are fiduciary agents of their clients… mortgage brokers never got that memo, and they went after people who were in decent loans “here, refi, you’ll get a lower rate” left unsaid was “for three years, then you’re looking at higher payments, and I’m going to get a fat ass commission that’s going to be pretty close to the equity you have in your house right now.”
piratedan
perhaps EC’s Billiant Mistake would be more appropriate here?
PeakVT
@KG: The problem with realtors is that even though a buyer’s broker theoretically works for a client, the broker still needs a buyer to, you know, *buy* before they make a buck. I think it incentivizes them to be a wee bit boosterish. And, of course, the quicker the buyer makes a deal, the better. (Anecdote: The last two buyer’s brokers I worked with were pretty relaxed, but I also made it clear I knew the market pretty well the first few times we talked and wouldn’t buy unless I really liked the deal.)
SqueakyRat
Excuse me, but in the large scheme of things the National Association of Realtors is nothing compared to the banksters.
goatchowder
Realtors are some of the most mendacious, emotionally-manipulative, rapacious vipers I’ve ever seen or dealt with. They’re way worse than used car salesmen, because they’re better trained and they screw you out of even larger dollars.
blogreeder
So the big scoop here is that the National Association of Realtors were dumbasses for encouraging people to buy houses?!
Price Geoffrey
There’s one involving happy endings and orifices and the other is about a check being in the mail. But the biggest real estate-related lies are often said in the first few minutes: “There’s never been a better time to buy real estate than now,” and “They’re not making good [water-front] real estate anymore.” I was on the phone and I asked a local RE Agent last year to promise not to say those things in my presence (like I ask other people not to say “post-modern”), and she didn’t call me back after that.
scottinnj
The official line of the National Association of realtors should be:
“It is always a good time to buy a home because it is always good for our members to be involved in a transaction that generates a sales commission”
PeakVT
@scottinnj: Buy or sell.
Karen
I knew about the real estate bubble in 2006 and I’m in Silver Spring, a DC suburb. We bought our townhouse for $97K in 1990 and got $250K for it in 2006. In order to get that sale I had to put almost $15K into making the lawn super green, changing the room that had water hookups into a half bath, painting and fixing the roof. Then we had to offer $7K for closing fees. The couple that bought it put the house title in the woman’s name because the man had lousy credit. When I saw that I wondered if they’d find other problems later on down the line since my husband and I had excellent credit and when we bought it in 1990 we had enough trouble coming up with the $97K. But my husband and I had separated, he had no job (no desire to look for another one either) and even though I was working, I had to pay for the monthly mortgage out of my own pocket but I couldn’t afford to do it much longer.
Now I know that the chances that house into foreclosure are pretty great. We were lucky, so lucky that we were able to sell our house because the realtor had been telling us that it was getting harder to sell houses and the values were going down for the more expensive houses and would reach the cheaper houses by the end of the year. The fact that a $250K house was considered to be a cheaper house speaks volumes.