Realtors Group Lowers Forecast but Lawrence Yun Still on Kool Aid

This guy amazes me; he is nothing if not consistent in his terrible forecasting.

Folks here is the latest!

Yun now calls for home sales to be down 10.8% from last year.

30 days ago, Yun thought it was (drumroll) going to be 8.6%, so he is only off by a factor of 25.6% in 30 days. Just imagine if you were THAT wrong in YOUR job (and no it's not a 1x thing, he is this off every month - thats what happens when your 'independent analysis' is affected by your constituency - it would be like a presidential candidate's own campaign pollster doing the national polling).

Here is the kicker... he thought back in February the year over year drop off would be only (drumroll) 0.6%! Don't even make me try to calculate by what magnitude that 'economic forecast' was off by.

But wait, we still have 2 more months, maybe he will get this one right since we are RUNNING out of months in 2007 to screw up.

No wait, that wasn't the kicker - the real kicker is next year's forecast. EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE PEOPLE - GET BACK TO BUYING INFLATED ASSETS errr REAL ESTATE!

Yun now predicts 6.12 million in sales, UP from the 5.78 milion predicted for 2007 (which goes down monthly) - thats a 5.9% INCREASE! woo hoo!

Now the kicker of all kickers is that 6.12 million in sales is down 2.4% from his forecast LAST month, so this is his CONSERVATIVE number. He was even more bullish last month - what were we looking for last month? 8% increase in home sales for 08??

"The speculative excesses have been removed from the market and home sales are returning to fundamentally healthy levels, while prices remain near record highs, reflecting favorable mortgage rates and positive job gains," Yun said.

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Sorry, I just must laugh after picking myself off the floor. Now the good news is Raleigh, Austin, and Salt Lake City are looking up; I believe that consists of 0.8% of the entire US population. The other 99.2% - don't you worry, things are looking up next year. Tell 'em Lawrence sent you! (as an aside I've been looking at Austin or Raleigh as relocation destinations so just my luck they hold up; I guess I'm not the only one looking!)

Long accuracy and realism