John Tuccillo was once the chief economist for NAR, a position currently held by Lawrence Yun. I continue to find John's insights some of the most accurate and enlightening out there.

This post on his web site goes through how we got into this mess and what John sees as the prospects going forward. I think it's one of the best analyses I've seen.

One of the most interesting pieces of this is the third point about how large national home builders began to replace family businesses and how they're driven by different economic realities. It's a piece of this puzzle I hadn't heard before and I think it's right on.

I'll be interested in hearing what you think; what John's gotten right and where your opinion differs.

I've been pretty dismissive of much that comes from NAR's chief economist's office. While Lawrence Yun is certainly been much more realistic than his predecessor, he's still too often been a cheerleader rather than an unbiased source for information. It's understandable given who signs his paychecks!

But his latest analysis of what's going on nationwide with home prices is very educational and, I think, gets it mostly right.

Locally, prices continue to decline. But given the sudden increase of activity in the last couple of weeks, I suspect there's some chance we may be getting close to a floor in some areas. (Probably not Culpeper!)