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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