It seems that if your the economist for the NAR, you need to be pollyanish about these matters. What happened to their last economist? Did he finally have to step down because he had finally lost all credibility?

There are so many variables that go into an economic forecast that make predicting the weather look easy. Like weathermen, they usually get part of the picture right but never have a model so complete that you can watch it unfold before your eyes. Until the capital markets gain confidence that the banking industry understands how to access risk in the mortgages they underwrite, you are not going to see a recovery. I think we are still in the discovery mode right now, so we have at least another year for the big picture to be understood and the issues addressed and fixed. Remember MBS's(mortgage backed securities) were viewed as a relatively safe play and often used as hedges against more risky business. That belief has been proven wrong and now the yield is deemed too low for the risk. This is one of the reasons the Fed has cut discount rate, to help improve the yield to attract investment. So far it hasn't worked. Fixing this issue is going to be complicated and may involve giving investors a better yields and requiring borrowers to put more money in the game. This means that fewer people are going to qualify for loans and the interest rates are going to be higher. Therefore, the cure may make things worse before they get better. Normally a bottom comes when there is complete capitulation and the prospect for the future looks its worse. In the residential real estate market that capitulation is hard to come by since people can simply not sell or rent. However, even if people were to start dropping their prices substantially, I don't know if that would spark a recovery since the money is not there to finance the purchases. As for when the recovery will occur, write all the years from now until 2015 on a board and throw a dart with your eyes closed. Where it lands is as good of a prediction as these economist's predictions. Just like a weatherman can tell you that global warming will make more Hurricanes, they still can't tell you when they will occur or where they will strike. Keep in mind that if we fall into a recession, as some are forecasting, all bets are off. During the last recession we used home equity to dig us out. Now that that is gone we would need business to step up and make investments. My feeling is that foreign investment is going to be the savior coming from all the places that depend on us to buy their products. Anyone speak Arabic or Chinese?

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for posting this!

brittneysgran ~ Happy Friday!! thank you for the lovely box of yard sale items. I so enjoyed opening happy mail. The bird magazines, I am looking forward to reading since I have a bird feeder in the front of my place. I only wished I had more colorful birds that would visit my place :) Thank you for all the lovely goodies and so excited to plant them and watch them grow. I hope to treat them well because I know they came from a loving home. Thank YOU again for the prizes and the lovely box. I so appreciate your time in digging them out and packaging them to send to me. Take care!!!