Goldman Sachs Upgrades Hombuilders to Attractive; Adds Meritage (MTH) to Conviciton Buy List

The Flaws In Goldman's Analysis

The Goldman report overlooks three key points: 1) Unemployment – Outright joblessness is kissing 10% right now. I don’t see any credible economists arguing that that number is dropping anytime soon. While a case can be made for a “jobless recovery,” no one is saying that people are getting back to work. The so- called underemployment rate — which includes part-time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking — reached a record 16.8 percent. With a growing number of unemployed people, a smaller pool of people have the money to buy homes. 2) Shadow housing inventory coming to market – By one estimate, seven million housing units are scheduled to come online. In a perfect world, it would take almost a year and a half to sell just those units. How is a troubled market supposed to both absorb several million units, and push the units already in the market out the door? An $8,000 tax credit? 3) Already known distressed assets – The cherry on this sundae (and you know the main ingredient of this sundae) is that half of all residential mortgages will be underwater by 2011. If more people lose their jobs, have increasingly negative equity in their homes, and some lenders/servicers take their sweet time before foreclosing, why wouldn’t more people throw their keys to the bank? For Goldman’s sake, I hope the money Goldman is investing on this bet does not come from the Executive Bailout Fund. http://multifamilyinvestor.com/exclusive-we-didnt-find-what-goldman-was-smoking-but-we-discovered-their-housing-report/