Joel Naroff, a Philadelphia economist, was honored by Arizona State University in New York City on Thursday. An economist, he was honored for being one of the most accurate forecasters in the country. He gave his view on the housing market, its foreclosures and tightwad buyers.
He stated that things could turn around next year if consumers, banks, business and investors would just stop overreacting. While he said it’s impossible to be absolutely accurate in today’s weird economy, he believes that once people start to see that things aren’t getting worse sometime next year, they’ll start shopping again vigorously.
“’While there is a lot of reason to be concerned right now, I think people are overreacting to the situation. When the psychology changes, you will wind up getting a stronger reaction in the economy than basic economic factors would argue for.”
In other words, overreaction led to paralysis, but when things don’t get worse, a buying rebound should result.
Obviously when the masses start buying again, the best deals will go first and all prices will go up. So stay ahead of the curve and plan to buy now, so you don’t end up missing the “when things were cheap” boat.
Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, was selected by ASU’s University’s WP. Carey School of Business to receive the 2008 Lawrence R. Klein Award. The honor recognizes him as having the most accurate predictions from 2004 through 2007 among 50 economists’ who forecast for the Blue Chip Economic Indicators published by Aspen publishers.
The ASU business school judges and sponsors the national competition and also produces its own Arizona Blue Chip Economic Forecast.