The more things change the more they stay the same. Remember just a few weeks ago, bloggers rejoiced when David Lereah, the chief economist for the National Realtors Association, resigned? He was, um, disliked by many, to put it mildly. He even inspired his own de-bunking blog, David Lereah Watch. You are no one until you inspire your own hate-blog. Quick - someone register curbedLAsucks.com! Anyway, the powers-that-be at NAR have replaced Lereah with a new paid shill, back-pedalling bitch, cheerleader, senior economist - Lawrence Yun. His first order of business? Blame the bloggers and media for scaring the bejesus out of you.
To a great extent, we can thank steady media coverage of the real estate market “correction” for unfounded consumer concerns....But there’s no real correction where consumers are concerned. Yes, home price appreciation has slowed considerably, and nationally we’re expecting a price drop of 1% for 2007. But that drop comes at the tail end of a five-year spurt that increased home prices by 53%. We may have taken one small step back, but that’s after taking 53 steps forward.There's nothing to see here. Just move along. Not surprisingly, Lawrence has already inspired his own watchdog blog, with the completely non-partison, objective tile "Lawrence Yun Watch - Follow the NAR's hack as he denies the housing bubble and crash."
· Realtors Blame Media for Housing Slump [LA Land]