Ebook: Houseonomics: Why Owning a Home is Still a Great Investment

First off, it is always suspicious when a book that does not have a high-profile launch gets a flurry of good reviews right off of its release date. This book never had any significant sales, but the five star reviews came in fast and furious right at the release date in June 2008. Many of these reviewers had never given another review on amazon before or since - remarkable! You can draw your own conclusion.

As far as the book itself, well, lets just say the Smiths arrived a little late to profit from the housing bubble party. Remember Dow 36,000? At least the writer got the book out when the NASDAQ was still rising, and people were looking for something to confirm their fairy tale belief that it all wouldn't come crashing down.

The Smiths started putting out their housing-cheerleader research in 2006, claiming that - even at 2006 prices - housing was a good investment. Well, the market had already started to tip, but the Smiths didn't bother looking at the little factors of oversupply or availability of mortgage finance on prices (just a little oversight, don't you think?)

If they would have pumped the book out in 2006, they may have caught some sales off the last gasp of the bubble before it burst. Their main assumption in their research model, believe it or not, was that housing prices always go up. This is not a joke; these academics assumed that, even after the spectacular run-up preceding 2006, prices would rise indefinitely into the future. So with this assumption in place, they concluded "housing is still a good investment". Wow, what a revelation - assets that rise in price, unbroken, into infinity are good investments. If only such assets existed.

But a "housing prices always go up" book in June 2008, after eight months of national declines? Are you kidding me?

I recommend that you buy this book for comedy purposes only.