While researching yesterday’s blog entry, I ran across this little tidbit.  Frankly, it p***es me off.  I am proud to be a member of the NAR.  I think that there is a place for a strong voice both for real estate professionals, and to champion the issues for increasing home ownership for consumers.

But this is downright stupid.  Whistling past the graveyard.  Spinning… without anything to spin.

Just as I will call the bubbleheads to task for making blanket predictions with no sort of timeline, I will call the NAR to task for making flat out bad predictions that they should have known to be wrong as they were making them.

  • 12/11/06, Lereah predicts most of the correction is behind us, and we should sell 6.4 million units nationwide.
  • 1/10/07, ups the sales forecast to 6.42 million.
  • 2/7/07, ups it again to 6.44 million.
  • Starting in March, downgrades the sales prediction every month until November hits 5.5 million… scrubbing almost a million homes from the beginning of the year.  Each time there is a statement saying something to the effect of the worst is past.
  • Beginning in May, Yun is doing the predicting… Lereah is at Move . com…  Same stuff going on.
  • In December, Yun revises sales for 2007 to be up slightly from the previous month’s prediction to 5.67 million units.

In what I hope to be a final bit of honesty, Yun states that 2008 may only be slightly better than 2007.  But, after 12 consecutive downgrades, while each was accompanied by a statement about the worst being past, I have my doubts.

Despite what I think is an attempt by the NAR to buoy consumer confidence in the housing market, the result is exactly the opposite, with the added issue of making the NAR seem unwilling to level with the public.  Real estate agents already have less statue in the community that used car salesmen and lawyers… spinning bad numbers and trying to pull one over on the public is not a way to fix that.

I get a bit tweaked when the media seems to fail to recognize that there are markets in this country that are doing quite well.  I get MORE tweaked when my own trade organization tries to hide reality from our consumers… my clients, customers, friends and even me.

NAR, this is why you are sliding into irrelevance.