See? I told you! If the news repeats enough, they can manipulate their readership.

After scaring buyers for months, announcing much gloom and doom, after hearing it enough, prices are down in most the country. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller(R) Home Price Indices, home prices declined in some key housing markets the past year. San Diego (-5%), Boston (-4.7%) and Washington D.C. (-4.3%) suffered the biggest year-over-year declines of all cities. Seattle and Portland prices are up 10.6% between February ’06 and February ’07, and Portland prices rose 7.7%. Different newspapers headlines?

S&P economists believe that this “indicates the deceleration and declines in home prices are showing no signs of turnaround.” So, no stabilizing according to them.

So finally after scaring everyone, I can’t help but think that the news media industry, once again, influenced their readership and have influenced a market that could have been great for everyone. At least, some people didn’t heed the FUD and went ahead.

The other question that bears to mind is, is it really that bad if prices go down? Isn’t it a catch 22?

Click here to read more data.

To show you how serious the city is about helping everyone get into an affordable home, the city is considering an Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, which I am sure will raise a lot of objections.

None the less, Long Beach hired a consulting firm to study an eventual inclusionary housing ordinance. Thise law would require developers to dedicate a percentage of their residential units to affordable housing or pay the city an in-lieu fee of several thousand dollars for every market-rate unit they construct.

Check out the Long Beach Business Journal.

For those of you interested in getting involved in Long Beach or are just curious as to where the city is heading, the ReThinking Greater Long Beach group will hold its third annual conference on the Atlantic Corridor Project: ReThinking Greater Long Beach, “The Atlantic Corridor:

From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on April 28, at Hughes Middle School, 3846 California Ave, the event will focus on understanding and improving residents’ quality of life along the corridor, drawn from Ocean Boulevard to the Compton city line.

For more information, call 562/494-8056 or e-mail contactus@rethinklongbeach.org.

Wow, for the second year in a row, someone bumped the nose of my Alfa Romeo 1974 spider.

You know, parking is out of control in this area. People with 6 cars parking on a block, people forced to park on red zones hoping they won’t get a ticket. I was parked normally on the end of Livingston in front of a red line thinking the nose of my car was safe. Next morning, an all too familiar feeling as I remove the cover from the car, some hitch had damaged the nose of my car, estimating costs at around $500.

So just this to say, I had the same thing happen last year. I supposed dome typical SUV or pickup truck, too lazy to remove the hitch ball. Then the garbage truck literally took out part of mu bumper.

It’s really sad to see people like these with no ethics, no responsibility and certainly no accountability. All this happened a day after some scooter boy started threatening me as he parked his scooter in a normal car space and I had moved it slightly.

Yeah, really makes you wonder how some people can go on living the way they do, if you can call it living. Also makes you wonder should you have a nice car or should you just have any old regular car and let it exposed to others…

It’s so easy to manipulate people’s moods and ideas as we have seen over the last decades. New Media companies have started to play a different role than what they were meant to. Most act as cheerleaders to keep a feeling of semi-unity while most just relish in FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt).

And something like Heebner said: “Biggest housing-price decline since the Great Depression” would send some people into a panic when he says home prices could fall 20% with bad loans.

Pretty bleak and also possible but who knows. If nothing changes, we continue our merry way like this, we will eventually hit another wall. The real estate market is closed to first time buyers and the many who rent don’t see the point in buying.

Thanks Calculated Risk.

This is what puzzles most people, at least the ones who ask me my favorite question: “Where do you think the market is heading?”. Guesses are guesses and no one can accurately predict the future.

In the meantime, Calculated Risk posted results from DataQuick on medium prices and the pace of sales.

“Sales remained at a ten-year low while the median sales price increased to a new peak.” This is what is confusing most people. How can sales be slow and median prices rises? Against 99% of headlines and expert predictions, no one saw that one coming and rightfully so, how can you?

One of the reason given is: “The rise in median is in part due to a drop-off in sales of entry-level homes, a real estate information service reported.”

One thing is for sure, it is a strange market that is asking our profession to redefine itself.

Here is another post on the subject.