Brett Banter

The New York Times painted a gloom and doom picture of the housing market this morning. Their not-so-new news is that the era of Americans turning mortgages into personal money machines is over. It's a sad tale that was fueled by greed and a lack of common sense. People bought houses they couldn't afford thinking they would double in value within a few years. What were they thinking? They were thinking they had seen it happen elsewhere? They read national stories about it. They watched television "reality" shows that promoted this idea.

It was a fallacy. A bad public relations move that has only gotten worse. One of the little talked about tales in the housing debacle is that the real estate market is not national. What plays in Peoria doesn't always play in Kalamazoo.

The Times again trumpeted this fallacy by talking about expected national housing numbers would not be up to par. Of course they won't people. There was too much housing construction in places that didn't need it. The glut is there. Not everywhere.