He does have several wrong signals, namely the buy in 1/94, sell in 8/95, buy in 8/96, sell in 12/01, buy in 1/03. He gets all confused: what is it, buy or sell? He’s got people buying and selling every 18 months between Jan 94 and Dec 96. He is definitely wrong on the buy signal in January 2003! Again he had a wrong sell signal in December 2001.

Following his method, you’d be losing money in real estate, because he told people to be out of the market from 12/01 – 1/03, at time of great appreciation. In addition, the real estate commission incurred by buying and selling every 18 months is prohibitive. He has 3 buy/sell signals in 2 years between 1994 and 1996, and 2 buy/sell signals in 2001 – 2003. I only see his signals through 1/04, the latest date in his book which I just purchased.

Let’s not confuse the fact that Campbell is a nice guy with the fact that his model is poor at forecasting real estate cycles. Kudos to him for trying, but shame on him for misleading people into thinking that he has it figured out.