Doomers- If you are in the Tempe, AZ area tomorrow morning,  I’ll be speaking at a meeting of the "Strategic Edge" on the Phoenix housing market.  The meeting will be at 7:30 a.m. at "Jim’s Coney Island Cafe," 1750 N. Scottsdale Rd. in Tempe.  That is at the SW corner of Scottsdale and Cavalier, 1 block south of McKellips and 1 block north of the 202.

The New Home Sales Report came out last Friday, and we were told that December prices were up: The median home price — half sold for more, half for less — rose to $235,000 in December from a downwardly revised $232,200 in November, the Commerce Department said. The MSM generally neglected to report it, but while the month over month was up, prices were down 1.5% year-over-year. Also of significance, the MSM has the habit of allowing the old revised numbers to fall into the "black hole" of cyberspace, mentioning "downwardly revised", but not giving the former value.  This erases…
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Once more, severe questioning of one of my posts by Doomer Old Mike got me thinking. A few days ago I posted an edited version of a contribution that a realtor submitted to Doom’s Ideas bucket. Old Mike thought this realtor had stepped beyond that profession’s / trade’s proper and customary role when he reflected on market timing, then Old Mike went on to discuss in depth his opinions on where the limits of the realtor’s work should be drawn. As before, I’ve done a bit of editing, added some commentary in footnotes and put in a link or two….
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As of yesterday, our friends at Mortgage Lender Implode-o-meter (MLIOM) were reporting that "Sixteen lenders have now gone kaput."  MLIOM starting tracking these lenders in December, so the rate at which subprimes are closed or sold has been a surprise even to "Doom and Gloomers." I have tried to find answers from industry insiders, and have particularly appreciated comments on Broker’s Outpost (BO), a site maintained for mortgage brokers, who mainly use BO to look for funding opportunities and advice from each other, but occasionally make more general comments on their industry. I  was struck by the assessment offered by…
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One of Doom’s favorite agents sent this report to me last night:   January 2007 ALL MLS  Active                    44,865 [up 7.3% since Jan 4]Under contract          6,761Sold                        3,343 [Down 22.4% YOY so far this month, and 2006 was well below 2005] Dec  06 1-27    4,205  SoldJan  06 1-27    4,309  Sold Pendings are increasing, but January is looking more and more like a "new bottom". Please forward to David Lereah!  

First the good news. Although the REIC’s self-serving math goof will be repeated in community newspapers [1] for who knows how long, Canada’s serious Mainstream Media really gets it now. Sharp eyed Doomers may have taken note of yesterday’s Canadian Press wire story [2] that confirmed Ben’s commenter tweedle-dee‘s criticism of a RE/MAX assertion last Wednesday of 11 percent gains in Canadian real estate over the last 25 years. Looks like I might now have to take back some of the harsh words I handed out to the CBC in last Thursday’s Doom post Realtor Math Invades Canada".

OK, Doomers, we need a few eyeballs on this one.[1] It appears that a Golden Gate Mortgage associate(?), Shahzada Corp. in Newark CA, may be due to have the contents of its office (at least one, anyway) auctioned off on Wednesday. Details from the Craiglist to now below, but check the link for the latest. Doom informants have suggested both that paperwork might possibly have been left in the (abandoned?) office, and that this is not possible. Anyone physically close to the site might at least check whether it is in fact closed. As well, anyone having an appropriate contact…
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Realtor Steve Presley is hardly the sort of person Doom would consider popping on the Resources list, but recently he submitted a short piece to our Ideas page that deserves a look. The theme is how calling the bottom of the RE crash / correction will be best done in retrospect.

It’s an article of faith that "The Big Lie" just doesn’t work in our society. Nevertheless, the level of jawboning [1] [2] [3] that has cropped up recently to support Goldilocks, the soft landing, and a perception of US economic strength has been astonishing, to say the least. My worry is that either a whole lot of commentators who know more about this stuff than I ever will have completely lost touch with reality — or I’m in serious trouble.

Doom’s Blogger-In-Chief Twist is taking the weekend off (to give her typing / mousing hands a well earned rest), but expects to be back for posts, comments, and e-mails on Monday.  Please direct correspondence to me until then – John [at] HousingDoom [dot] com

Hat tip to spike66 at Ben’s Weekend Topic Suggestions for this important find. An article [1] from today’s New York Times provides a healthy dose of Mainstream Media (MSM) confirmation for what many bubble bloggers have been saying for months, notably Crispy at the Bakersfield Bubble and Aaron on The Mortgage Lender Implode-o-Meter (up to 16 today, yikes!), but many, many others. Thanks to all. Also at Ben’s, GetStucco recommends this Newsweek article [2] as further evidence the MSM is getting wise to subprime, and Twist adds this recent Providence Journal piece [3] that documents how a half-dozen subprimes have…
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It’s Friday, and if David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors is to be believed, it is all uphill from here, having established another new  market bottom in December.  [Isn't it a good thing that little "bubble" thing is over?] As always, we welcome your links, quotes, comments and insights.  Today we also are especially seeking your favorite "bottom" quotes [that would be REAL ESTATE bottom, folks], whether it be Lereah, "dancing on the bottom" Bob Toll, your favorite realtor or whomever.  With enough quotes, perhaps we can put together a permanent page similar to this. Thanks…
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Last month David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR) stated, "The housing contraction has bottomed." Lereah however appears to be calling a new bottom.  David Lereah, chief economist for the Realtors, said that even with the December setback, he still believes that sales of existing homes have hit bottom and will start to gradually improve. He said that in 2005, 40 percent of the market represented purchases of second homes and investors buying homes looking to resell them for quick profits. He said that speculators had now left the market and that should leave sales at…
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HousingDoom welcomes Oc-ed, whose work impressed us so much, we had to share: Fraudsters

Ben’s commenter tweedle-dee picked up this one. Yesterday Canada’s National Post published an article [1] based on a RE/MAX study, headlining it with the assertion that Canadian house prices had maintained 11% annual increases for the twenty-five years, since 1981. The headline 11% figure is obviously a gross error, and publishing this without checking is a true credibility-busting event. Canada’s CP wire-service seems to have picked it up, after which it was re-published [2] by CBC News. As of this writing the latter version is "updated", and they have given a nod to compounding, but have retained the headline 11%,…
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