In Case You Missed It: Barron's Cover Calling A Bottom

It certainly was interesting reading this weekend when I picked up the Barron's on Saturday morning to find the cover calling a bottom to the housing market. The article, by Jonathan Laing cites several experts from Henry Paulson (Treasury Sec'y) to Chip Case (of the Case/Shiller index) seeing the latest downturn as overdone. The optimists point to a number of recently improved metrics and government statistics that show some signs of rebounding. Case also points out that all 3 times in the last 35 years that housing starts dipped over 50% from the peak that the next quarter surprises to the upside.

In New York, where we have been very fortunate to avoid most of the fallout thus far, we tend to forget that the national market has been in decline for the past couple of years. While nobody really knows a bottom until it has passed, the Barron's article makes some interesting points. Let's hope that they are right.
Bottom's Up: This Real Estate Rout May Be Short Lived (Barron's)