As a follow up to the story I posted this morning about the record decline in the building of new homes comes word via Zero Hedge that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has overstated the sales of existing homes by a whopping 14% since 2007, as shown in the chart above. Why is that date significant? Because that was when the housing crash got underway in earnest, of course.
There are no laws against a private organization misreporting statistics, but given that these data releases have a material effect on the rising and falling of stock prices, perhaps there should be. At the very least, I would think that anyone who had shorted housing/mortgage/construction industry stocks these past few years and got burned should have grounds for a massive class action lawsuit.
Most importantly for the rest of us, this is yet another example of just how desperate those with a vested interest in areas of the economy that are quickly dying are to try to maintain appearances in the vain hope that someday there will be a real recovery. The truly amazing thing is that so many people still maintain faith in the system and what they are told about it by organizations like the NAR despite the fact that they should have long ago been thoroughly discredited. I always tell people that they should NEVER listen to advice from someone who is trying to sell them something. That's just common sense, something else which is in all too short supply these days.
Bonus: I'd like to dedicate this song to the NAR
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