What does the A in NAR really stand for?

Asinine.

The National Association of Realtors released its latest existing home sales report for the second quarter of 2007 and - if you ignore the 10% year-over-year decline in sales volume and the drop in median prices - guess what? The NAR says things are improving!! Yipee.

Not that they haven’t been saying that, oh, for the last year or so, but finally some signs of life! The report shows that some (even a majority) of marketing areas have seen year-over-year price increases. We’re all saved and the housing market is recovering just on the NAR’s schedule.

Excuse me while I clean the vomit off my shoes … As our good friends over at Housing Wire point out the analysis used to come to the conclusion of an improving market is about as reliable as the analysis pointing to WMD’s in Iraq.

From our PhD friends over at Housing Wire:

I usually try to avoid rants on this blog, but as someone who has studied for a PhD and understands econometric analysis at a very high level yes, really I simply cant take it anymore when I see a well-cited trade organization absolutely fail to do any sort of basic analysis to support its own rhetoric. Who did their analysis? A second grader?

HW readers should by now understand the awful truth that housing is still in some serious trouble. Prices arent leading indicators of where a market is headed; so its sort of silly, really, to see a senior economist at the NAR expounding on how some perceived movement in prices might signal better days ahead.

…

If Lawrence Yun gets paid to pretend to be an economist, why am I sitting here writing a blog for free? Why are you reading this blog? After all, I can pull my own opinions out of thin air and make up conclusions without actually doing any analysis. Im pretty sure you could do the same, too.

I mean to me the NAR has already discredited themselves plenty of times over; but if there is any doubt please look at the Housing Wire post on this “analysis” and please make a big mental note to 100% for the rest of your days ignore anything the NAR has to say about anything.

Thank you.

Please note that I have now added any posts about the National Association of Realtors and their forecasts to the “Why I hate My Industry” section of Blown Mortgage.

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[Source: Blown Mortgage]