Bloomberg Gives Real Estate Two Sentences

By David Sobelman

I was listening to Bloomberg radio in the car today and they started talking about macroeconomic indicators. After they got done talking about retail sales and the Cash for Clunkers program, they began to delve into real estate. The most amazing part of the conversation was the length of time they spent on the topic. I was so ready to start my mental rolodex of every real estate term I have ever learned in order to keep up with their conversation. But low and behold, I was disappointed. They essentially mentioned real estate as an indicator and that, at this point of the “recovery,” everything would be fine. Discussing the decrease in pricing for homes while the volume of sales increased was mentioned. Commercial real estate got an acknowledgement insofar as to say that it’s a small part of the real estate market and an even smaller part of the economy; so they weren’t too worried. Does that mean I shouldn’t be too worried? Does our entire industry deserve a long segment of discussion from the economists on Bloomberg or should we be as blasé about the market turning around as they were? Two sentences are all we got from them. All I can say is that while I see signs of improvement on a daily basis, I think there is a little more to the real estate market than could be said in two sentences. Stay tuned, hopefully we’ll get more hindsight, insight and foresight from our experts.