Housing Smoke Screen Continues.

I knew over the weekend we would have every single person who missed the housing correction come out and tell us that America's pain is over with regards to housing. We had so called housing/real estate experts come on TV and tell everyone the good times are back.

tradersutra.blogspot.com/2009/08/seasonal-adjustments-make-housing-look.html

We all should be wary of listening to such idiots. The housing report that ignited the gains on Friday was from the NAR - National Association of Realtors. These are the same ones who were waving the pom poms around when 2 BR condos were going for 700K in crappy neighborhoods.

The government can learn a thing or four about spin from these guys. The data that came out Friday was spun in a way to have more people buy into this fake recovery. Remember Ponzy Schemes only work if the morons on the bottom believe the people at the top.

Also, I have noted that 16K in condo sales made this entire rally happen! A lousy 16K low end condo sales in the Northeast made equities rally some 160 points on Friday. Take away this 16K, and we actually had a negative number. Also, the vast mount of homes in this country or the single family non condo variety. Single family ex condo sales were down 10% year over year, and down 5% sequentially.
Hence cheap condo sales in the Northeast is what the NAR and the frauds on Wall Street are hanging their hats on. Overall, the data suggests that housing is getting worse not better.

Even today, we have this nugget about the UK Housing Market.

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=asUXMel6Rzeg

BTW...I live and own a condo in NJ, that I love, so I am not picking on condo owners, I am one, but even with gains in condos, Western States are still in horrific shape, where sales are still down 10% Month to Month, and much worse year over year.

Step back and take a look at this:

Home Prices have cratered
Rates are at historic lows
Foreclosure Moratoriums
Loan Modifications
Tax Incentives
Better sentiment

And sales still suck! They are flat year over year, and down some 7% from 2007 levels. We just had the mother of all perfect positive storms in housing, and the actual trends are getting worse.

Conditions going forward are no where near going to be this positive.

There are so much governmental forces focused on getting housing out of its doldrums, just think about it, if the government hadn't already bankrupted the country, where would housing be? Foreclosure activity is off the charts now, just imagine if the government didn't act. Ethically, the government did what it needed to do, keep people in their homes, but in the process, they just prolonged the excess to future generations.

What is going to happen is unemployment is going to get worse, credit is going to tighten more, lending standards will get more stringent, and rates will rise as the dollar and debt markets crumble. THEN WHAT?

This entire theory of getting sentiment to lead the actual recovery is beyond ass backwards.

tradersutra.blogspot.com/2009/08/markets-are-downits-long-ovedue.html"

Can the government continue its vulgar spending unabated? Can the NAR continue to smother lipstick on the pig that is the US Housing market?

Foreclosure activity has grown almost every month since housing peaked, while housing sales including cheap condos are just at July 2008 levels.