For the very few of you who don’t already know this, realtor industry ‘predictions’ have no predictive capacity whatsoever, they are rearview commentary with an optimistic bent. They mechanically extrapolate from the recent past and call it ‘forecast’. Here are the CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) antics ‘predicting’ sales for the year 2010, thus far. We presume that by Dec 31st, they’ll have it right. It’d be refreshing if, in future, they simply say “Guys, we have NO idea where the markets are going, but we’ll send out regular reports on where it has gone.” -vreaa
“CREA forecasts national activity will reach 527,300 units in 2010, up 13.3 per cent from 2009.” – CREA News release 8 Feb 2010
“National activity is forecast to reach 490,600 units in 2010, up 5.5 per cent from 2009.” – CREA News release 2 June 2010
“National sales activity is forecast to reach 459,600 units in 2010, representing an annual decline of 1.2 per cent.” – CREA News release 30 July 2010
[Links from Devore at greaterfool.ca 1 Aug 2010]
Yeah, no doubt. LOL!
I guess the same could be said for economists, politicians, stock analysts, salesmen… etc.
Remember this gem…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/26/AR2005102602255.html
bullwhip29 -> Agreed. For the vast majority of them, the benefits of going with the herd (rearview mirror consensus) far, far outweighs the risks involved in actually coming to an independent assessment of the relevant market. Most would far rather be wrong with the group than take the risks involved in possibly being right on their own.
Steve Eisman summed it up in The Big Short.
If you are “buy” and wrong, that’s fine. If you are “hold” and wrong, that’s fine. If you are “sell” and wrong, you’re fired.