After scaring homeowners, buyers and sellers witless for the last three years, the financial press and stock analyst economists contributed mightily to the decline of housing in 2006, where homes have lost value recently for the first time since the National Association of Realtors began keeping records back in 1968. Now these same self-serving analysts, who would like to see day-trading home investors pour their money back into stocks, are saying the worst is over, according to a new Wall Street Journal Online survey.

But is it too little, too late?

In his piece for the WSJ online, "Is the Worst Over for the Housing Bust?" writer Phil Izzo clearly knows the value of loaded headlines. He pens that The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight index says that 2006 will end with a net rise in housing prices of a slim 2.8 percent, compared to a 13.4 percent increase in 2005, but that 2007 will see a fall of 0.5 percent.

Excuse me, but that's still a rise, isn't it? At least until the minuscule drop anticipated in 2007 ... .

Mr. Izzo doesn't acknowledge that current housing figures are hardly poor; they're equal to a record-breaking year only three years ago. The day-traders may be out of the housing game, but somebody's still out there buying homes. Yes, inventories have built up largely due to the shock of interest rates moving up, to a seven and a half month supply, but the steady drumbeat of print and broadcast media has had just as much of an inhibiting effect on homebuyers.

Where's the proof? At this point in time, homebuying conditions are actually better than they were at the same time last year when the bubbleistas were writing and speaking full blast. Interest rates are down to 40-year lows and a 10-month-low for 2005-2006. Inventories have risen to 7.5 months on hand, which allows buyers more choice and bargaining power. Jobs have improved to the point that the jobless rate is down to 4.5 percent, a full half percent lower than this time a year ago. Wages are up. Oil and gas prices, despite fluctuations, have gone down since the record highs of the summer. The list goes on and on. Yet in many areas, even those that sat out the housing boom such as Dallas-Fort Worth and didn't show the run-up in housing prices that the press likes to quote in California, Florida and Nevada, buyers are on the sidelines.

The disconnect between favorable homebuying conditions and buyer paralysis has prompted national real estate-related organizations to take matters into their own hands. Realogy Corporation, The National Association of Realtors, and The National Association of Home Builders have all begun campaigns to reverse the effects of the negative press by taking out print ads and putting out press releases that now is actually a great time to buy (or sell) a home.

Why? Buyers may miss out on a terrific opportunity before interest rates go up again. With world populations growing, the popularity of the United States is unlikely to diminish as a place to live. In 1945, the world population was 2.3 billion. Since then, we've tripled in size to 6.5 billion and by 2050, we'll have 9.1 billion people on the planet. With a relatively low birth rate, and slowing death rate, the U.S. is gaining population but it's immigration that's helping to net one person every 11 seconds.

There will be someone along, sooner or later, to buy your home.

Says Irwin Kellner in his latest CBS Marketwatch column, "The fate of the housing market is no longer in the Federal Reserve's hands, since psychology has now become the driving force behind the decline in home prices," he writes. "Buyers, though, could care less about the outlook for interest rates: They smell blood."

Could that be the reason homes have slowed down -- because buyers are hoping for a better deal? Could be, but the most choice homes will sell, and the buyers on the sidelines will be back to having less desirable inventory from which to choose.

That's why the financial press isn't doing anyone any favors by hyping a housing bubble that doesn't exist, except perhaps in a very few markets.

Izzo quotes stock analyst economists such as Ethan S. Harris at Lehman Brothers, Maury Harris of UBS, and Allen Sinai, at Decision Economists, who all agree that the worst is over for housing, but the problem is, they aren't in housing, they're in stocks. Richard DeKaser, an economist at National City Corporation, a mortgage provider, was the only economist with an active interest in housing who was quoted by Izzo. "We're starting to see inventories topping out and possible declining," said DeKaser to Izzo, who wrote that DeKaser sees a 4.4 percent increase in prices this year and a 1.8 percent decline in 2007.

That doesn't sound much like a housing bust. It sounds more like an easing, that could set the stage for another boom. But a moderate take on what are still fairly moderate figures won't sell many papers, will it?

Published: November 24, 2006

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Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. For more articles by Blanche, click here.