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Home > Real Estate > Archives > 2006 > September > 05

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

Market chill has cheerleaders turning churlish

By Jeff Ostrowski | Tuesday, September 5, 2006, 05:52 PM

With home prices “cooling in a very significant way,” as the head of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight says today, some former cheerleaders are changing their tune.

The usually optimistic David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, dropped this bomb in Saturday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal: “I’m hoping for prices to drop … The sellers are not bringing prices down fast enough. They’ve been very stubborn.”

Once prices fall, sales volumes can pick up again, Lereah says.

Meantime, a Century 21 broker in New Port Richey took out an ad in a community newsletter with this unusual message for homeowners: “WHY IS EVERYONE SELLING? MORE HOMES FOR SALE MEAN LOWER PRICES! STOP SELLING!”

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