In George Chamberlin’s column [By George: Words for Investors [North County Times]](http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/12/11/business/chamberlin/19_31_2212_10_05.txt) in San Diego provides some plain language to the discussion of the current state of the real estate market. He is a TV and radio commentator.
After the Fed release its quarterly household wealth report, CNBC ran alerts that Americans were deeper in debt than ever before but the report said that net worth rose to a record level.
Foreclosures are lower today than a year ago
As far as a slowdown in sales, the California Association of Realtors said it took 34 days to sell a house in October. A year ago it took 33 days.
The NAR report that pending home sales dropped 3.3% in November and that was reported as a sign of collapse yet in California, they rose 0.8% indicating that real estate is local.
The UCLA Anderson Forecast calls for a crash of Southern CA real estate prices over the next few years yet excludes San Diego county from their stats.
Wall Street has a vested interest in seeing housing slide to prompt more people to return to the financial markets.
Although this commentary is California-orientated and I am not an advocate for the real estate industry, the lesson here is for the media to fairly interpret the information released.
Tags: CNBC, Pending Home Sale Index, PHSI, Radio, NAR, National Association of Realtors
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