Perhaps the cover curse has nuances that match topic with magazine to invoke the full curse. For instance, if BusinessWeek runs a covers on a specific company, then that ends the specific company's run, but it does not have that same effect to BW covers for "trends". To change a "trend" you need to get it on the cover of Time. Thus, the housing crash is a "trend" and needs Time coverage. Beazer and Standard Pacific, however, would need a BusinessWeek cover about now.

I, personally, have been watching for the Time cover on "Real Estate: The worst way to spend your money", at which point I will buy all the resaleable properties I can get my hands on.

When everyone starts talking about it, it's already over. Need to watch the Fox News business lineup on Saturday morning. Or more business shows during the day. A few people are talking about it and are frequently roundly ridiculed.

The educated consensus is that the worst will hit this year and 2008 will see improvement and that the housing bust will not spill over to the rest of the economy.

There must be something wrong with my charts. Every time somebody brings up that Time cover, I look for the big peak in June of 2005 and somehow it isn't there. Seems to me peak pricing was in early 2006 by just about every measure.

I agree the easy money's been made and the bragging rights are pretty much over, but I'll take at least another six months or so against the homebuilders and then we can talk about a bottom.

CR,

Tues we get the "non farm productivity" numbers. Since we postulated that the homebuilders had employed a large number of "off the record" workers, it would seem that productivity in this sector was boosted. Could this data be used to estimate the "off the record" worker numbers for the housing boom?

The fact that there seems to be a general consenus that a rock dropped from the top of the Empire State Building will hit the ground hard probably will not slow down the rock.

Also,news can be news today and not be news forever.

We'll be at 'the bottom' when the median home can be bought for 3x to 4x the median salary in the area.

We have far, far to fall to get there in many markets. Others aren't that far from it now.

Where I live we are there now... have always been there as long as I've lived here (25 years). Median family income of a little less than $60K and median home price of a little more than $150K.

Not trying to sound like Seb but that's the thing - a lot of the US isn't completely wacky over real estate. Its a very bimodal situation.

"When everyone starts talking about it, it's already over."

Only if all the major factors in the situation are already known and anticipated. But in a speculative economy like this that no one even claims to completely understand, unknown factors tend to come into play just as the major actors start to clink glasses and congratulate themselves on their survival.

"The educated consensus is that the worst will hit this year and 2008 will see improvement and that the housing bust will not spill over to the rest of the economy."

Tell that to Jimmie Cayne. He'll be reassured.

The study indicated that BW was a good canary, and died right on time. Now the canary hopes to kill itself, to predict a mine disaster?

It don't work dat way...

Just another example of why the mainstream media is circling the drain. The blogosphere was onto the housing bubble literally years ago; I distinctly recall finding this blog and others (housing doom, housing panic) back in 2005.

Of course we were initially ridiculed as bears, doom mongerers, and party poopers. What's that I smell in the air ... vindication?

Once the general public finally gives up on their dreams of real estate riches, then we'll be near the bottom. But I see little evidence that has happened.

NJMortgages wrote I guess we should thank Lewis Ranierie and Michael Milken for inventing these great mortgage backed products that have made our credit markets so much more efficient.

You know, it's all in the execution. There wouldn't be all these problems is the underwriting on the loans going into these pools had been reasonable.

(I am egotistical enough that I don't mind repeating myself.) Real estate is local but credit is national and darn near everybody buys real estate on credit. So watch the money. When the purse strings are loosened to disburse funds for morgages then we will be at the bottom.