Wall Street Journal Nicole Friedman’s latest attack on investing in homes. Do not believe your lying eyes.

Home market hater Nicole Friedman's negative spin of the day in the WSJ is "Price Rise For Homes Eased In August."

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Here is the neutral headline if she were not a Russian disinformation machine or had some other motive for this ignore your lying eyes campaign: double-digit home appreciation rates continue in August.

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This is the CoreLogic data. 15.6% appreciation for the 12 months ended July 2022; 13% for the 12 months ended August 2022.

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"The second straight month-over-month decline," she spins. "Housing market has slowed abruptly," she laments. "Rapid increase in mortgage rates," she explains. "Pushed many prospective buyers out of the market," she further spins.

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"Existing home sales fell for eight straight months," she misdirects.

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Did you say home prices fell for eight straight months? Oh, no. You are referring to UNIT SALES. The NUMBER of home sales in eight straight months. Who gives a s*** about that number? The National Association of Realtors?

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And here's a new negative spin. There is a lag between when hone prices are agreed on and when the deal closes so Nicole can hope that prices are actually already dropping but we just can’t see it yet because of a data lag. THAT would fit the all-investment-categories-suck now narrative.

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"...we have returned to a buyer's market," she quotes an economist saying.

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13% appreciation is a buyer's market? Either Nicole and her editor are idiots, or they think you are. We already know the economists are idiots.

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Sports fans, double-digit increases in the value of an investment asset is a great return. Furthermore, with the standard 80% loan-to-value ratio, you get a 5X multiplier on the appreciation rate, so the return on your down payment investment is 5 x 13% =65%.

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Plus you have the other two dozen structural advantages of principal residences like bankruptcy protection, $250k per spouse gains tax exclusion, no prepayment penalty, fixed interest rate, owner occupant property tax discount, etc. Etc.

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Maybe Nicole and her editor are short U.S. homes.