Once again, the Case/Schiller Index has lived up to its name. All summer long, real estate shills have used it to jack up homebuyer confidence and fluff the housing market. Now, they are doing it again. Just look at the bullshit headlines coming out today:

U.S. Economy: Home Prices Increase by Most Since 2005 . . . US home prices up for third month . . . Index shows home prices rose for 3rd month in July . . . Money Daily Brief: US home prices rise for third straight month . . . Home prices gain for 3rd straight month . . . Denver home prices rise again, getting closer to 2008 levels

Most of this unbridled optimism is based on the just released Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller’s U.S. National Home Price Index data for the month of July, which showed that home prices went up by 1.2% since June. A one-point-two-percent month-over-month increase? Ain’t that something! (more…)

If you search your favorite news aggregate for “US housing market”,  you’ll find a whole mess of headlines guaranteed to make you feel good about that crappy McTractHome you might have bought at the height of the real estate orgy. Turns out that you’ll start making money on your investment sometime very soon. Just look at the stuff I skimmed off the top of Yahoo and Google News (more…)

I’ve been thinking about sleaze and corruption lately. It’s hard not to. Out here in windy, sun-baked Victorville, underhanded swindles are about as common a sight as the tumbleweeds blowing around the Mojave Desert.

The biggest scam now is the revelation that the city of Victorville is probably going to end up paying $9 million to Goldman Sachs, and as much as $175 million to GE, after reneging on a crappily planned power plant project pushed on it by a huckster real estate development/energy company called Inland Group. (more…)

It’s 5 AM in Victorville, California, and I haven’t slept in 48 hours. Outside my second-story window, the sun is rising up over the jagged mountains across the desert. In the three months I’ve lived here, I’ve seen more sunrises than I have in my 28 years. There is something about living in a barren house in a half-empty suburb out in the middle of a sun-baked nowhere that brings out the tweaker in me—and judging by daily news reports, most of my neighbors, too.

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US Stocks Gain On Report Of Pending Home Sales . . . Pending Home Sales Rise the Most in Over Seven Years . . . Consumer Confidence Spurs Broad Gain . . .

You see the same bullshit headlines churned out everywhere you turn. Yes sir, we’re supposed to believe the recession is over, recovery is underway and prosperity is just around the corner. We need to go out and fulfill our patriotic duty, which means buying things, preferably houses. That’s what smart investors would do, we’re told. And judging by the polls, Americans are starting to believe it. (more…)

I’ve always taken it for granted that brokers disseminate lies through the media to tweak property values. But a couple of weeks ago, I became a small cog in the national real estate propaganda machine myself while reporting for the New York edition of Time Out—on Kensington, Brooklyn, a supposedly “hot” new neighborhood stretch bordering wealthy the Park Slope district. Given the slick nature of the magazine, I filed a smoothed over narrative of what I saw—Bengalis, Hispanics and Hasids, chattering away amongst themselves in ancient dialects. I left out the trash filled yards, chop shops and nasty eyed stares from the locals. But a questioning email came back from my editor: where are the boutiques, cafes and charming restaurants? My answer, that there weren’t any, didn’t cut it with him. (more…)