Inman Real Estate Connect SF

A: Inman Real Estate Connect conference is back in San Francisco July 23rd - July 25th. The event takes place at The Palace Hotel on 2 New Montgomery Street. Continuing on with the success of January's heated housing debate, which was picked up by CNN Money, I assisted in putting together a great panel to have the second BULL vs BEAR economics debate, with some of the great minds out there. I hope you can register and make it to the conference and this panel.

The last BULL vs BEAR debate, held in January, turned out to be a very timely discussion of the severity of the credit crisis, housing downturn, monoline bond insurers, toxic bank balance sheets, and psychology of investors during asset cycles. It was a lively discussion that got picked up by CNBC and this CNN Money article titled, "Housing: No room for bulls":

"We're facing the worst housing recession in U.S. history," according to Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University and co-founder of RGE Monitor, an economic research and analysis firm. He predicted peak-to-bottom national home price losses of 30 percent. The housing turndown, according to Roubini, was the initial trigger for a broad economic decline. "We're in an economy-wide recession already, one that will be much more severe than those of 1991 or 2001," he said.

Another bear on the panel was Barry Ritholtz, chief executive of market-watcher Ritholtz Research. He placed the real estate slump in the framework of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' five stages of grief: anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Ritholtz said we've just about worked through the denial stage, which was exemplified by the National Association of Realtors first saying there was no housing slump, then that it would be contained (the soft landing scenario), and then that it would be limited to housing.

Now, said Ritholtz, "We're in the bargaining stage," where he said we'll promise to never speculate on real estate again if God will only let us sell our properties now. Next will come depression and finally acceptance. "That," said Ritholtz, "is when you should start to buy again."

The third bear was Noah Rosenblatt, founder of UrbanDigs.com, a blog that covers macro-economic trends and their impact on New York real estate. He not only predicted a strong recession but said he's looking forward to it.

"If you're a value guy, are you buying now? No," he said. "It would be like catching a falling knife. It's a credit crisis and we're going to see a lot worse before it gets better." For Rosenblatt, a recession would clear out all the bad loans and foreclosure problems, and then the market could return to normal.

Here is the info for next weeks conference:

Wednesday, July 23rd, 4:00 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.
The Housing Debate: Bull vs. Bear
Where are we in this housing cycle? Has recovery started or is it just beginning to show signs? Is there hope for an uptick by the end of the year? Join a lively debate between housing bulls and bears who present differing views of housing's future.

Panelists:
Noah Rosenblatt, Founder, UrbanDigs.com
Bill of Calculated Risk (CR), Real Estate Analyst, Calculated Risk
Yves Smith, Author, NakedCapitalism.com
Avram Goldman, President & CEO, Pacific Union GMAC Real Estate
John Williams, Economist, Shadowstats.com
Dottie Herman, President & CEO, Prudential Douglas Elliman

I have not met any of my fellow panelists in person, but I have been in contact with Yves Smith via email a few times and have had some great conversations with Bill from Calculated Risk both via phone and email over the past year or so. Needless to say, Calculated Risk & NakedCapitalism are two very well respected and highly trafficked blogs that cover the housing markets, credit crisis, and the state of the economy in depth. Both have proven to be timely and savvy in predicting the current credit crisis and the severity of the situation that has been denied over and over again by corporate CEO's and passing economists. Time has proven both these site's to be an enormous benefit to readers. Now you can see us all in action at the conference.

Contributing to this talent, it looks like John Williams of Shadowstats.com and Dottie Herman were late additions to the panel! The debate should be heated, lively, and discuss housing/general economy/credit crisis and where we believe we are in the current cycle.

I greatly look forward to meeting these pioneers in person and participating in what will definitely be a great discussion! Hope you can make it!!

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