3rd item of today for the setting up of the ‘Sheeple’ for the “Great Deception for 2012” is this MSM’s PORE that US home sales were up 4% in latest month!
Now this is supposed to be GOOD NEWS and will be promulgated as the beginning of the ‘bottoming process’ of the US housing Market, which improving metric is essential if the ‘Sheeple’ are ever to be to reawakened,
since the heart of the economic problem in the US is the housing market.
However. this report from the NAR also contains some real gems that are evidence of nothing less than past criminal activity of juggling the numbers so as to hide the ugly truth, until much later when nobody will care - IMO:
# 1 Home sales were revised downwards by the NAR for the LAST FOUR YEARS by 14%!
2 This massive downward revision was prompted by an internal audit by the NAR, after they were accused of reporting massively inflated numbers of home sales.
#3 The body that made the charge actually charged that NAR’s numbers were inflated by 33%!
Now, after these revelations, can there realistically be any dispute whether or not the recent downturn should have been categorized as a Recession or a Depression?
Also, does everybody feel so very happy and relieved to hear that the very same body – the NAR – reports that home sales are now up 4% for the latest period?
And in light of this massive revision of rather simple economic metrics, do our suspicions of the US Commerce Department’s reported data, voiced in our Market Review and 1st Quarter update and on these Blogs, seem more entertainable?
Especially since the US CD is dealing with infinitely more complex data metrics, such as GDP & CPI?
Existing Homes Sold Since ’07 Revised Down
Bloomberg: By Timothy R. Homan - Dec 21, 2011 2:15 PM ET
“Purchases climbed 4 percent to a 4.42 million annual pace, the most since January, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The group revised down figures going back to 2007 by an average 14 percent, putting them more in line with other measures of demand.
“Perhaps signs of life are increasing for the housing market,” said Ellen Zentner, a senior U.S. economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York, who forecast a sales rate of 4.4 million for last month. “Housing is finally not going to be a drag on economic growth in 2012. (I would like you all to remember this forecast in light of our own forecast of down for the next roughly 20 years; that is, down for next 1 &1/2 years in ‘absolute’ terms and next 18 & ½ years in ‘inflation adjusted’ terms!)
That’s not to say that risks don’t abound. We know that there’s a substantial shadow inventory of distressed properties that we’re still waiting to come onto the market.”
… The median estimate of 71 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a 5.05 million pace in November existing home sales. Forecasts ranged from 4.38 million to 5.25 million, a wider-than-usual range because some took into account assumptions for the benchmark revisions and others didn’t. October’s reading was revised down to a 4.25 million rate from a previous estimate of 4.97 million, reflecting the NAR’s benchmark updates.
Total purchases were revised to 4.19 million for 2010, down 15 percent from a prior estimate of 4.91 million. Sales were trimmed by 16 percent for 2009, by 16 percent for 2008 and by 11 percent for 2007.
“Before the revisions things were bad, now they are even worse,” Lawrence Yun, the group’s chief economist, said in a news conference today as the figures were released.
Figures from other trackers of home sales showed a slower pace of purchases compared with NAR, prompting the agents’ group to revisit their data. CoreLogic Inc., a real-estate analytics company, released a report in February showing that 3.3 million existing homes were sold in 2010, less than the 4.91 million initially tallied by NAR.
Independent Data
CoreLogic, based in Santa Ana, California, monitors sales figures through property records at local courthouses, while NAR follows sales through the multiple-listing services used by real-estate agents. The property-deed records contain “huge statistical noise,” said Yun, making CoreLogic’s numbers too low.
NAR tallies in recent years were overstated because the consolidation of multiple listing services caused distortions in the data, according to Yun. He said overestimates of direct sales by owners and home builders’ use of the listing services to sell new homes also helped inflate the data. (Could there possibly have been any intent of these parties to fudge the numbers?)
….said Michelle Meyer, a senior U.S. economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York. “The big take-away is that there was an even bigger gap between affordability and housing demand, making it even more difficult to trigger the rebound,” Meyer said in an interview. …The median price of a previously owned home decreased 3.5 percent to $164,200 from $170,200 in November 2010, today’s report showed. (Prices continue falling quite nicely0
….Federal Reserve policy makers reiterated at a meeting this month that they will keep the benchmark interest rate near zero until at least mid-2013. (Such trumpeting of the ZIRP for such an extended period of time is going to distort all markets, just as did the Greenspan’s AZIRP) The central bank in September decided to reinvest maturing housing debt into new mortgage-backed securities (This is another form of QE that qualifies as ersatz QE3) instead of Treasuries. .,..”
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