Housing’s Most Optimistic and Pessimistic Outlooks
Here’s an interesting housing survey from Zillow. You’ll recognize many of the names listed on the most optimistic and pessimistic list, but what I find most interesting is how even the most pessimistic group is back to essentially saying housing can never fall in price. You’ll notice that the most pessimistic quartile is calling for housing appreciation in the coming few years. As Zillow notes:
“Figure 1 shows the forecasted, cumulative home price changes by quartile among panelists. Even the bottom quartile shows that opinions have turned much more favorable, with an appreciation of 0.3 percent forecasted for 2012, while the top quartile predicts an appreciation of 4.4 percent by year’s end.”
And you can see the discrepancy even more clearly in the list’s most optimistic and pessimistic analysts where the top 5 bulls are all calling for 20% appreciation while there’s only ONE bear calling for a 10%+ decline:
I’m surprised at how quickly the optimism in the housing market has turned. We seem to be moving back into the pre-bubble mentality that housing prices never decline….
Cullen Roche
Mr. Roche is the Founder of Orcam Financial Group, LLC. Orcam is a financial services firm offering research, private advisory, institutional consulting and educational services.
Follow Me:
8 Comments
Wages and salaries are up about $133 billion – or 1% of GDP on annualized basis.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/883191-wage-and-salary-growth-is-accelerating?source=email_macro_view&ifp=0
http://static.cdn-seekingalpha.com/uploads/2012/9/24/saupload_graph-1_thumb1.png
Excellent contrarian observation. ZIRP doesn’t solve everything.
Risk ON!
Conveniently, less than two months before a presidential election, housing has been magically fixed.
Shilling has been the most accurate by far in his predictions since before this thing began.
Much of the housing glut will never sell and like the last time around will end up being demolished. Back in the 1940s and 1950s huge amounts of high end housing that was built pre-1930 was in ruin even in high demand areas like Long Island and the Maine coast.
The next generation will not be able to begin to afford to own the mcmansions that glut so many of the markets today. As the boomers die off and leave these properties to their heirs the process will accelerate. Tomorrow’s utility bills will dwarf today’s mortgage payments. Renewable energy mandates will see to that.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, property taxes are dropping as fast as real estate values. Riiiiight.
Here is one for you. He is a real economist.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/09/house-buying-tips-from-mel-gibson.html
By the way, is housing glut the same as housing inventory?
I write Minyanville.com’s Housing Market Report and I’ve been the only analyst in the nation asserting for two years that there is no housing bottom in sight. If you want my latest evidence, check out BUSINESS INSIDER some time between now and Thursday to see my bearish case for housing.
Nominal house prices will increase. The evidence: Dems/GOP have been united on this for decades. The Fed has explictly decided to use housing wealth as a nominal anchor. Anyone foolish enough to bet against the one thing that spans Congress/Fed/electorate?