David Lereah Quotations

Since April we've experienced three out of the four strongest months on record for existing-home sales, and August was the sixth highest. We're at a more sustainable level now, but long-term there should be some additional easing toward the end of the year. In fact, the August sales pace is close to what we project for total sales this year.

Since 1971 there have been only five months when mortgage interest rates were lower, and all of those have been during the last year and a half.

Modeling a relationship between economic and commercial market indicators, as well as market trends and sentiment, will provide us with a new tool in assessing market behavior in the major commercial real estate sectors. It is being designed as an index to provide early signals of turning points between expansions and slowdowns in commercial real estate activity.

Mortgage interest rates were at the highest level since the third quarter of 2003. At the same time, we've seen strong double-digit appreciation in home prices, so a modest slowing from record sales was to be expected. The good news is that home sales are being sustained at historically high levels.

Right now, home sales are a little lower than projected, but they can be sustained around current levels.

With more buyers than sellers nationally, what we're seeing is a natural pressure on home prices as buyers compete to bid on available properties. Fortunately, the historically low cost of debt service on a home purchase means that we have a comfortable buffer in most of the country because the typical family can afford to buy a home well above the median price.

Some of the cooling is coming from non-boom markets such as Detroit, where there are job problems. I do worry about those markets if the economy continues to slow, though we do expect the economy to pick up in the first quarter.

We got to 6.6 sooner than I expected. I hadn't expected that for two or three months.

Real estate is still a great investment opportunity for households. Price appreciation will continue. It may not be at 20%. It may ... even go down to 5%.

...housing activity will remain healthy for some time to come.

The continuing shortages of housing inventory are driving the price gains. There is no evidence of bubbles popping.

We are really on track for a soft landing. There are no balloons popping.

The drop in pending home sales is an affirmation that we are experiencing a modest slowing in the housing sector.

The steady improvement in [home] sales will support price appreciation...[despite] all the wild projections by academics, Wall Street analysts, and others in the media.

If you paid your mortgage off, it means you probably did not manage your funds efficiently over the years,

With sales stabilizing, we should go back to positive price growth early next year.

I believe that in years to come, historians will see the beginning of the 21st century as the ‘golden age’ of real estate.

Home sales are coming down from the mountain peak, but they will level out at a high plateau - a plateau that is higher than previous peaks in the housing cycle.

The slowdown amounts to a tapping of the brakes on a hot market.

Our definition of second homes has changed with the buyer shift toward investment property, ... In examining Census data to determine the number of investment units, we see that second homes are a much larger share than the conventional mind-set of them being mostly vacation homes.

A new record is a bit unexpected, but so is the performance of mortgage interest rates which have been lower than forecast. When we look at recent job gains, we see all the positive factors coming together to coincide with a powerful demographic demand for housing.

You're going to be taking away from Middle America. Everyone, whether you use the mortgage interest deduction or not, the value goes down. You've just reduced the retirement nest egg for everyone.

This is the biggest annual home-price increase in any metro area on record.

A lot of demand has been met over the last five years, and a modest rise in mortgage interest rates is causing some market cooling.

Although mortgage interest rates have risen in the last month, housing affordability conditions remain favorable.

It's a simple matter of supply and demand. We continue to have more home buyers than sellers in most of the country, which results in tight housing inventories and higher rates of home price appreciation.

Not only have mortgage interest rates declined, but an expected rise in the second half of the year will be slower than in earlier projections. As a result, we now expect to set records for both existing- and new-home sales this year.

The nearby regions picked up a great deal of activity very quickly.

So, 2005, when we look back, was the best year in housing in recent memory, probably of all time.

In the handful of areas with price declines, none had previously experienced rapid price growth. In fact, they were all lower-cost areas experiencing one or both of the conditions necessary for temporary price softness -- local economic weakness, mainly in jobs, or a large supply of homes available in the local market.

The underlying fundamentals of the housing market are solid and sales will stay historically strong, but they will trend modestly down from current peaks. Masked by the data are early signs that housing is starting to wind down from a boom and will transition into an expansion - in other words, a soft landing.

These historically high home-price gains are the simple result of more buyers than sellers in the market. The good news is that the supply of homes on the market has been trending up and we are entering a period of a more normal balance in supply and demand.

The current pace of home sales activity remains historically strong only eight months have had a higher sales pace.

The current pace of home sales activity remains historically strong - only eight months have had a higher sales pace. A modest downtrend, to a sales volume that is expected to be the second-best year ever in 2006, will be good for the long-term health of the housing sector.

A modest slowdown in home sales, coupled with improvements in the housing inventory, means the market is in the process of normalization.

A modest downtrend will be good for the long-term health of the housing sector.

A modest downtrend to a sales volume that is expected to be the second-best year ever in 2006 will be good for the long-term health of the housing sector.