Fence Sitters Will Be Sorry

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Our favorite housing cheerleader, Chuck Smiar, is back in the news again today with another attempt to scare real estate fence sitters into action. After issuing a warning to hesitating homebuyers that they were "in for a surprise" back in December, Chuck had this to say in a North County Times piece earlier today:

"There's a lot of buyers sitting on the fence waiting for the bottom. And I think if they don't jump in soon, they're going to be sorry."

Well, he did add the phrase "I think" in there. Perhaps he's getting more circumspect as time goes on. Nonetheless, this latest assertion fits right in with his increasingly well-established track record of making statements that, in addition to having little basis in reality, seem pretty clearly intended to frighten people into buying homes.

The accompanying graph displays Chuck's prior suggestions overlaid with San Diego home prices (as measured by the Case-Shiller home price index through January and then approximated using single family size-adjusted median prices for February and March). The timeline pretty much says it all -- I'll just add that I look forward to future installments.

For the record, I'm not purposely singling out Chuck here. He may be a real nice guy, for all I know. He just happens to provide the funniest examples of the brazen and often delusional boosterism that emanates from so many (though definitely not everyone) in the real estate industry. To his credit, at least he sticks to telling people why they should be buying homes instead of concocting implausible conspiracy theories to explain why they aren't.

-- RICH TOSCANO