Year Over Year Decline in House Values – What the TelePrompter Isn’t Telling the Pundits to Say

I have only one question about the stats.  Other than Case and Shiller, who cares?  Perhaps the builders need the data to plan the number of units to buiild next month, next year can use the data.  Individual consumers learn nothing from market reports that can help them decide whether to buy or sell real estate.

Then the other issue.  Other than being incomplete, inaccurate, and irrelevant,  the reported housing data seems flawless :))

Excellent points.  And you didn't even need your teleprompter!  Thanks for posting Dave.

Another superb post Dave!

Great post, Dave.  Everytime I turn on the news, the sky is falling (which is why I now specifically turn off the news).  

This is a very important point.   Our area is pretty high end.  So you can see what the tax credit did or didn't do.   At the upper end of the market  - it did very little.  In that part of the market,  prices have actually gone up and sales are stronger this year.  High end buyers thinking they could make a killing on a $1 million + home and get it at a deep discount were bitterly disappointed.  There were plenty of reasonable buyers out there that were willing to pay what the comps indicated.

Its at the entry level where the market has suffered and the immediate move-up markets.  Entry level buyers were more sensitive to the tax credit and move up buyers had trouble selling their homes when the give-back dried up. Those markets are only now picking up steam and appear to have declined just enough to compensate for the $8000.  Actually, people buying this year are BETTER OFF because interest rates are great. But now we seem to be at or near bottom -with very little downward pressure at all. So buyers have to get with the program and make reasonable offers.

They are not going to reach out and touch someone. They might have an assistant call the NAR headquarters and get some nice sounding BS from those bandits. But, someone in the trenches trying to make a living? Fat Chance.

Oh, dear. You might have been a supporter of that tax credit. Oh, well! Opinions are like...................

You are right on.  The truth is not sexy and rarely gets reported, uless it is bad.  

Back in February we hit a second bottom of the market and the news is just now pickingit up.  And the banks are still not admitting it.  Well, maybe Wells Fargo with thier recetn announcement that the market may not bottom out unitl sometime next year.

Good post.........

Amen Brother!!!

An not only can any half-recent Realtor tell you why the market has dropped, but we've also been saying it would happen for years. I can think of many times that myself, as well as many others, said that this exact scenario would happen even before the tax credit came into effect.

Maybe it's just too simple for the ultra educated to grasp.

Absolutely, right Dave.  I get so frustrated that the news and the TOPUS tells the American people things that simply are not true.  Our market dropped another 20-25% since this time last year.  We're selling about 25% of what we did three years ago.  The market in this part of VA has not recovered.  Actually, it's down enough to run 1000 realtors out of business.  It changes the way we market, work and create business, but lying the general public over the airwaves hurts all of us.

Dave - But, sixty second sound bites sound so good.  Who wants complicated any way? LOL

Superlative post!  Not only the 2010 tax credit, but the affect of foreclosures, short sales, and the overall mess the banksters made of the market.  Nope, pundits are "sponsored" by the banksters who wants customers' ass-ets.  Oh, those delay / denial loan mods, shorts sales that go into foreclosure could never be the problemo in a declining market.  Before a housing story is run, the pundits are busily checking their palms for the sponsors and ads that grease them.

Dave. Pundits want soundbites. Facts don't come into play at all. All I keep hearing about is the "double dip". When the reality in my market is that values are still declining and have never stopped. But it's a strange market. Properties are selling like hotcakes. Inventory is very low. But yet values are still declining. Doesn't make any sense.

Values will stay in the downward spiral so long as bank and government policy direct that they should.  It would appear that the attitude in Washington is still tilted toward promoting a more restrictive lending policy (skin in the game) and I blogged about this yesterday as well.  Check it out if you get a minute:  http://actvra.in/bFn

Great post.  Thanks!

Dave, People's memories are very short. Bryant's take is on the mark as well. The market has never stopped going down. Maybe it's taken a breather. But it keeps going down, down, down. When will it stop no one knows. Excellent post.

Dave - There are so many different messgaes out there the consumer is getting gun shy ..... and the amount of bad news individual REALTORS® put out does not help matters either we need to start looking for the good news and talking that up instead of the bad news .

MY GLASS IS HALF FULL NOT HALF EMPTY