Every Picture Tells a Story

Mish's new Every Picture Tells a Story is a detailed commentary on the state of the housing market beginning:

In the past few months we have seen repeated bottom calls by David Lereah at the NAR. We have also heard Robert Toll proclaim to be "dancing above the bottom", and just this past week Greenspan himself said "The housing slump was all but over."

Following is a a graphical presentation to see if we can determine just how likely those statements are to be true. The pictures speak for themselves. ...

My observation of Santa Monica is that well-priced houses have sold within a couple of weeks of listing this year, while the overpriced stuff just sits ... and sits ... and sits.

Although inventory is down by half from the peak last October, days on market of what remains has nearly doubled, a sign of stalemate, not health.

The current economic environment and availability of "suicide loans" have only managed to keep median house prices relatively flat the last two years in coastal L.A.

Now we'll see the effects of Option-ARM resets, drying up of subprime credit, and a flattening economy.
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See also Calculated Risk's "Subprime: The impact on Existing Home Sales in 2007" on this today (2/17/07).