I think the PR thing might actually be a feeble attempt to counteract the media’s impact on buyer psychology. A lot of the bulls have been complaining about how all the negative talk actually pushes the market into a self-fulfilling decline.
Funny, I never heard them say anything about media influence when the market was on it’s way up – they swore it was the fundamentals driving those increases. I always thought the fundamentals come into play more heavily in corrections than in distortions, but what do I know?
I think you can skip the indirect indicators. An absorption of 15,000 of the current listings should be all the warning a prospective buyer would need to recognize a turn in the market. By the time the masses have figured out that RE is a good buy, most of the playahs on this board will already be two steps out in front.
