David Lareah, the economist for the National Association of Realtors has update his views and issued a press release today. It is getting a lot of attention. Here it is. Here are his key points:

it expects a 0.7 percent decline in the median price of an existing home sold in 2007. A month ago it had been projecting a 1.2 percent increase…The subprime mortgage mess led the group to cut its sales forecast as well, by 100,000 to 6.34 million homes, a pace that would be about 2 percent below the 6.48 million existing homes sold in 2006…Housing starts are forecast to fall 18 percent to 1.47 million in 2007 before rebounding slightly in 2008, which would still be well below the 1.8 million starts seen in 2006.

Not great news, but hardly a catastrophe either. Of course, the NAR is usually reasonably bullish, so…

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