“Kings of the Animal (and Consumer Economy) Kingdoms” Want a novel way to look at today’s housing market? Think of housing occupying the same role in the economy that lions do in the natural world. Namely, both sit atop their respective “food chains,” depending upon — and contributing to — the health of multiple levels beneath them. Economics 101 The...Read More
Is “Now the Time to Buy?” Discretion is the better part of valour. –Idiom Yes, interest rates are scraping along the bottom of multi-decade lows. And yes, home prices are down dramatically — and Buyers have never had more choices. Unfortunately, all those things were just as true in 2008 as they are now. And...Read More
Advice to Prognosticators I’m drafting my 2011 letter to clients now, which seems like a good time to recall this (anonymous) advice to prognosticators: “The ideal time frame for predictions is 2-4 years out. That’s immediate enough to compel people’s interest, but distant enough that if you’re wildly off the mark, no one will remember.”...Read More
Contrarian Indicators — Housing Market Edition If you like contrarian indicators, here’s a good one, courtesy of today’s New York Times: “Housing Fades as a Means to Build Wealth, Analysts Say” —headline, NYT (8/23/2010) Or as Barry Ritholtz puts it, “the time to be an über-bear on Housing (or anything, really) is before the collapse...Read More
