Last June, James M. Weichert went boldly on record calling the bottom in housing. This June, the namesake of Weichert, Realtors is at it again. Tuesday, the now-is-a-great-time-to-buy! poster child went on record — again — calling right now the bottom of the real estate market. From the boldly-worded, yet apparently also amnesia-ridden, press release:
In a message to the company’s nearly 18,000 sales associates as well as approximately 2,000 employees, Weichert announced that “we have reached the bottom of the housing market and will soon begin to see improvements.” “We saw an extraordinarily hot market at the start of the decade like we may never see again. I knew in May 2005 that we had reached the peak of the market when mortgage payments began to stretch beyond buyer affordability,” said Weichert. “Now, everything I am seeing is telling me the worst is behind us and we’ll begin to see a gradual increase in sales activities.”
Last June, of course, it was Weichert who was telling prospective buyers that “real estate is set for an upswing” — his words, not ours. We can’t help but wonder what buyers who bought in June 2007 think of his sooth-saying skills now. Keep calling the bottom long enough, Jimmy, and you’ll eventually be right. And I’m sure we’ll get a press statement covering how you knew it all along, too. Can’t we at least put the baseball rule in place for these sort of yahoos? You know, three strikes and you’re not allowed to forecast publicly any more?
