ROBERT SHILLER: This Might Be The 'End Game' For Falling Home Prices
- Anyone who follows Robert Shiller
closely knows that it's hard to get him to commit to calling a bottom
in the housing market, which continues to see prices fall.
- "I just don't see any scientific way to be assured what it's going to do," he told CNBC in an interview today. This is coming from the same economist who predicted the housing bubble in the second edition of his book Irrational Exuberance.
- However, his tone seems to have turned a bit more optimistic.
- "It could turn around," Shiller told CNBC's Brian Sullivan.
"We're seeing some good news now. Starts, permits, confidence, the
NAHB housing index is strikingly up. It's still low, but it's up."
- CNBC's Mandy Drury pursued the matter further: "Where is the endgame, Robert?"
- "Well, in terms of housing, we might be at the end game," Shiller
responded. "Home prices are back to a normal level. They could just stay
here, and that would be all right, right?
- "Housing is very affordable, interest rates are down, prices are down
to kind of a normal level. They haven't overshot normal. So maybe in
terms of housing, this it it. This is it."
- "Did you just say this may be the bottom?" asked Sullivan.
- "It might be, yeah," answered Shiller. "Things can turn quickly and sharply. It's too soon to tell."
- So, he's willing to admit that it might be a bottom. But still, he's reluctant to commit.
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