One More For CBS

Last night CBS Evening News did an enthusiastic piece about the housing market; about prices increasing in four cities (not mentioning what prices are doing the thirty or so other cities), and about companies refurbishing foreclosed houses by the hundreds and reselling them like hotcakes. Of course they had the mandatory featured indivual, a single mom naturally, who was all excited because she qualified for a loan and can now go out and buy one of those houses. She didn't wax enthusiastic about making house payments, but that part may not have been explained to her.

And, of course, today we have this, telling us that "pending home resales dropped 5.5 percent" in April and offer the conclusion that the figure indicates "the U.S. housing recovery remains uneven." I guess "uneven" is one word for it. The article goes on to say that, "Mortgage rates at record lows failed to sustain the pace of demand as some buyers may have waited for home prices to decline further." That must be those other thirty cities about which I speculated earlier.

And buyers indeed "may have waited for home prices to decline further." They may also have failed to qualify for loans because they still don't have jobs. Or they may have had jobs but still been saddled with so much debt from having been unemployed for so long that they cannot qualify for a home loan. Or they had to move to get a new job and they haven't been able to sell their old home, and so cannot buy a new one. Or they may have had two heads and been stored in a jar at Harvard.