God bless the Motley Fool:“There’s nothing funnier or more satisfying than watching the National Association of Realtors change its tune these days. The latest news release from this sunny-Jim industry group finally fesses up to its past fiction, but even when it admits the bubble’s going to pop, it can’t muster the courage to just come out and say it.”“...the NAR is full of it and will spin the numbers any way it can to keep up the pleasant fiction that all is well....The cracks began to show in subsequent remarks from NAR ‘Chief Economist’ David Lereah. The head outfit that ridiculed the idea of a housing bubble for years is now crying for Ben Bernanke to bring it back. ‘But this is a time for the Fed to pause on rate hikes because we have some interest-sensitive housing markets that have become vulnerable,’ Lereah said.”
“The real problem here isn’t the NAR, of course. You have to expect these people to spin the facts for their industry. No, the real problem here is the uncritical press out there, which is all too happy to pepper every contrary indicator or bearish remark with an NAR official’s informed-sounding bubble denial. Never mind if what the NAR folks are saying doesnt seem to make sense (or contradicts what they said just a few months back).”
“It should have been completely obvious to anyone with a loan calculator and a glance at wage increases that those months of industry bubble denials were just wishful thinking.”
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