The Current Real Estate Market with Christine Berger
Our program on March 20th was a presentation by Christine Berger of the Realtors Association. She is a lobbyist for the Realtors PAC, and a graduate economist. Her talk centered on the recent recession.
She started her presentation by asking if any of us knew what “NBER” was. Hearing no yeses, she explained that the NBER: National Bureau of Economic Advisors is a non-government bureau that declares when a downturn in the economy qualifies as a recession. They have 5 standards that they use which are published data from our government. They are (1) the quarterly Gross Domestic Product report, (2) Personal Income Report (minus transfers), (3) employment, (4) Industrial production, and (5) Sales Volume.
Christine showed us charts for each of the above standards, and asked if we thought that the NBER was correct in their choice of dates considering the data on each of the charts. The consensus was that in the narrow definition that they use, the board had chosen the correct dates for the recent recession. The recovery period from the recession has been longer than expected, so it still seems to many of us that we’re still in a recession.
And, speaking to her specialty, real estate is slower to recover than other businesses, but there are signs of health.
Next Week: The Titanic Darel Leipold
Greeter: Darel Leipold (Story by Tad Shaw