Friday, April 24, 2009

The Schilling/ Lawler home price wars

You can reduce all this nonsense to one paragraph, but let's start with the WSJ journal first:

Yale University economist Robert Shiller has often dazzled audiences with a chart showing home prices from 1890 to present. Someone even used Mr. Shiller's chart to make a YouTube video that puts its viewer on a roller-coaster ride over peaks and valleys in home pricing. It's a bumpy ride.

Now another economist, Thomas Lawler, says Prof. Shiller's chart is "bogus." Mr. Lawler says Mr. Shiller cobbled together data that are inconsistent and sometimes unreliable. Mr. Shiller defends his work and accuses Mr. Lawler of making "wild allegations."

But that doesn't stop analysts from extrapolating from what may be dubious data. In a March 30 report, T2 Partners LLC, a New York hedge-fund manager, drew on the Shiller chart to conclude that on average U.S. home prices need to drop another 13% to get back in line with the long-term trend.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124051414611649135.html

This is just nonsense--home prices have bottomed, as advertised here, on the exact day of the low. On March 23, when we had a world that didn't believe that the market and homes were bottoming:

Since the bears didn't like the 666 bottom on the S&P 500, I'll give them some more math that they'll have a hard time swallowing.

As it quite evident now, the stock market, even to those who missed the lows, has bottomed. The stock market, is a forward looking indicator, and even though the news has been bad, this news is already discounted in prices.

It's the same with housing.

And house prices, will now be going up, and these price increases, along with the rising stock market will get those who haven't bought, or who are contemplating buying a home, off of the sidelines, and it will help engender confidence in banks who love algorithms and models, but hate common sense!

Let's do the math. The numbers on the average home sale price came out today at $165,400. That my friends is the absolute low reading that you will see in this housing cycle, so get on board, or get run over by the train.
http://aaronandmoses.blogspot.com/2009/03/housing-math-for-bears.html

You can read the article. It's just simple math. More foreclosures in higher end properties, will cause the average price of homes to rise. The bad news in housing, will actually cause the average home sale price to go up!

What was the average price that they came out with today? $173,400. Up 4% from last month! You will never see those average prices in homes, that we had in March again, as I advertised.

If you want to chart graphs and argue minutiae like Schiller and Lawler, go ahead and waste your time, and then waste more of your time listening to T2's bearish prognostications on housing.

The bottom in home prices has now been in for thirty days.

You got the bottom of the stock market on the exact day, and you get the bottom on home prices, on the exact day also.

And time will show that the average price of homes, hit it's botton on March 23, just like time has shown the market bottom was on March 9th, and advertised here.
http://aaronandmoses.blogspot.com/2009/03/time-to-get-busy-buying.html

and here
http://aaronandmoses.blogspot.com/2009/03/market-bet.html

and emphatically here
http://aaronandmoses.blogspot.com/2009/03/we-go-higher.html

Even if Ben N Dover, Meredith Whitney, Roubini, and every other bear on the planet disagree.

They are just flat out wrong.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Palmoni,

Mentioning me in the same breath as the defeatist Whitney and the nihilist Roubini is simply uncalled-for. (By the way, has anyone checked his H1-B Visa lately?)

I'm in complete agreement with your realistic assessment of the undervalued housing market. The relevant statistics all point to a resurgent market that will prove that the former alleged "bubble" prices were a bargain. Decreasing home sales, falling sale prices, and large inventories are all lagging contrarian indicators that point to an "I"-shaped recovery for housing. Mounting foreclosure sales are also a good sign because -- contrary to the banks' previous practice of not even bothering to go through the foreclosure process -- they demonstrate that banks believe home prices will at least cover the legal costs of foreclosure. If I wasn't already fully invested in the bargain basement equities market, I'd be buying southern Florida real estate.

I hope this sets the record straight.

Benhamin N. Dover III

Palmoni said...

Mr Benjamin N Dover III!

I stand corrected! I'm actually quite a fan of your work!

Your letter to the FDIC was classic! I was up in the Northern Florida boondocks that weekend w/o an internet connection so I had to find a neighboring Starbucks where I could put your inimitable words on my blog!

http://aaronandmoses.blogspot.com/2009/04/benjamin-dovers-letter-to-fdic.html

The post today, was written in the wee hours of the morning after coming home from the casino with a little bit of a buzz, and after hitting a decent jackpot!

Otherwise, I wouldn't of made such a careless mistake!

Best Bank Rates said...

Rather than saying him bogus we should have appreciated his efforts for creating such a chart which would be helpful for other to reach a decision regarding house prices. As such charts really helpful to predict the nature of prices.