Economists Crack Me Up

September 25, 2006 |

Economy
I read an article from the USA Today about the national decline in both home sales and median price that took place in August.  The following is a quote from that article:

Sellers have to lower prices to bring buyers
back into the market, says David Lereah, chief economist for the
National Association of Realtors. He has repeatedly cut his forecast
for the real estate market this year, and now is unsure how deep the
correction will be.

"If we have prices drop for the rest of the
year, and sales also continue to drop, then we will have a bad
situation in housing of balloons popping rather than air coming out,"
he said.

But either way, "it’s a buyers’ market," he said.

Earlier this month, Lereah lowered his previous sales forecast.  I have to say that I don’t envy his position in this whole situation.  As the USA Today article pointed out:

the only situation that has received more intense analysis than the
housing market was the birth of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s baby

Being that Lereah is the Chief Economist for NAR, he is constantly looked to for market predictions (I guess that part of the job description).  I wouldn’t want to be the one making all these predictions.  It isn’t as if he can just say, "no comment," when he gets asked.  No matter what he predicts, he is bound to be wrong at some point.  I guess that is why Laurence J. Peter is quoted as having said, "an economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today."

 

Posted by Daniel | Filed Under Market Statistics, News 

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