Shameless real estate shill David Lereah is trading in his cheerleader's uniform for a business suit. The chief economist for the National Association of Realtors will become an executive VP with Move Inc., which operates real estate related web sites.
You wouldn't think a bland economist could inspire blog sites devoted to him, but Lereah's unremitting words of love about the market fed the bubble, many believe, and people needed places to vent. No fewer than four times did he predict the bottom of the housing market. The business media enabled the guy by going to him as if he were real estate's equivalent of Mariano Rivera (for those who don't follow baseball, Rivera is the relief pitcher who closes games for the New York Yankees).
I first caught Lereah's act four years ago when he shared the stage for a panel discussion about real estate on CNBC. I didn't know him from a one-iron, but he sounded as if he were reading from a press release issued by the realtor's assocation. I didn't trust him from the gitgo, but there were probably others who made some bad buying decisions based on his Pollyanna predictions. Good riddance.
According to today's Wall Street Journal, Lereah's parting words were unusually candid: "I represented realtors so I tried to be as positive as I could," adding that he "believed it [i.e. his own hype]." Lets hope the NAR can do better than deceptive and dumb in their next hire.
