“It’s a great time to buy or sell a home.”

From the NY Sun:

National Housing Horror Gets Gorier

Although some real estate markets, such as New York City’s, are percolating, it’s clear that the national housing horror show is far from over. If anything, it’s getting gorier.

As one worried trader, who asked not to be identified, put it: “The stock market’s in for more hell from housing; the subprime mortgage debacle seems like it’s still in its early stages.”
…
Raymond James Financial’s chief investment strategist, Jeffrey Saut, seconds the trader’s analysis. “Plainly, the lackadaisical lending standards by the mortgage crowd just a few years ago are now showing up at Wall Street’s doorstep,” he wrote in a market commentary he fired off to clients the other day. He also took note of a couple of other potential land mines for the economy and the stock market, namely much tighter lending standards and the chance the Fed, instead of lowering interest rates, as widely expected, might keep them the same or actually raise them.
…
Clearly, the experts have turned out to be dead wrong on housing. Last fall, the National Association of Realtors ran an ad campaign proclaiming, “It’s a great time to buy or sell a home.” It was followed by a slew of rosy economic forecasts suggesting the housing slump was ending and a spirited housing rebound was on the way in this year’s second half.

Recent numbers unmistakably demonstrate just the opposite. In May, for example, new-home sales fell another 1.6%, to an annual rate of 915,000, down almost 16% from a year earlier, and off 34% from the 2005 peak. Existing homes did even worse that month: Sales slumped to a four-year low, while median prices slipped 2.1% versus a year ago. It was the 10th monthly drop in a row, a new record.

(emphasis added)