The latest verbiage from the world’s most vocal housing-bubble cheerleader, NAR economist David Lereah, actually predicts that home prices will drop by 0.7 % in 2007.

Lereah is notorious for his delusionally optimistic real estate estimates that run directly contrary to reality, to the point that Motley Fool openly mocks him in the article. So, for Lereah to be forced to say prices will fall for the first time in 40 years means things must be getting very bad indeed.

David Lereah Watch has more.

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What will save us is recognizing that the age of consumer-driven capitalism is over.

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Ordinarily, high-priced homes are mostly immune from gyrations in the market. But these aren’t ordinary times. In Santa Barbara California even the 2 million dollar+ homes are sitting on the market with sellers being forced to drop prices. This is quite unusual.

In nearby Carpinteria, which is much less pricey, the cheapest 2 bdr condo is $415,000. There have been no sales in that condo complex for a year. Not one. People can’t afford them, especially now that the subprime door has been slammed shut. And many of those who do own condos there may get foreclosed because they can no longer afford their now much more expensive mortgages.

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“Over 40 percent of the water supply to southern California is likely to be vulnerable by the 2020s because of the loss of the Sierra Nevada and Colorado River basin snow pack” and heat wave days in L.A. are expected to soar from 12 to 44 to 100. Yikes.

Last summer in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, there were 60+ days in a row over 90 degrees, 19 in a row over 100, topping out at 119, the highest ever recorded in the city. Sue and I both realized this probably wasn’t a fluke, but part of a new trend. It was one of the reasons we moved. Ditto for the obvious fact that higher temperatures in the southwest mean less water will be available. The water wars of the southwest, which are already, uh, heated, will get ferocious.

According to the IPCC report, the Great Lakes will also have less water while Boston and NYC could suffer severe flood damage.

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Lenovo.

The least green? Apple.

Greenpeace says Apple needs to get on the clue train.

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