It looks like the two Davids are starting to plead ignorance with regard to the impact that investors (i.e. speculators and flippers) will have on the housing market.
First David Seiders, Chief Economist for the National Association of Home Builders: “I think the biggest risk would be for investors not only to stop investing, but to move those units back onto the market in large volume, and that could create a bigger problem. This is kind of new to us.” You don’t say.
And then David Lereah, Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors: “Investor activity is by far … the biggest risk that the housing sector is going to face this year, because investor activity had gotten to levels that we had never seen before. And we are in uncharted territory.” Not for much longer.
Risk? Problems? Uncharted territory? That’s quite a shift from the hyper confident “everything’s fine, so buy, buy, buy!” message coming out of these two organizations over the past couple of years.