There’s also the matter of financing. Standards have tightened tremendously in the last year, and it’s much harder to get loans—something I can attest to, believe me, after having just gone through the process. The banks are in bad shape, Fannie and Freddie need government backstopping and, yes, there’s a government housing bill coming, but any impact—and the degree of any benefit is itself in doubt—would be months and months away.

Along the way in its piece, Barron’s repeats some of the more ignorant and irritating blame-the-borrowers tropes trope that the mortgage industry and an unskeptical media have shoveled on the public for months now. “Jingle mail”, which the Los Angeles Times did a great job of debunking two months ago? Check. Greedy, lying borrowers? Check.

It’s rough (and probably pointless) work trying to call the direction of markets, but even if Barron’s is right, any recovery that will come is likely to be a slow, hesitant one.

One call we’ll make: this won’t be the last “bottom” call we see from some media outlet trying to be first.

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