If you are a regular reader of my blogs (like Ethan, who I quote below), you know I try to be accountable for my positions and try to share real experiences that I am going through in my investment world as well as I comment on things affecting the world of stocks and business in general. This week I posted: Frantic market: Retail up, retail down...who cares?, as the market darted up and down and back up. I think it is important to offer a sober perspective among all the noise. Most of what you hear is noise.

• Ethan wrote me: "Thank you for the rational non-exuberance blog on market forces. I do have to ask about the particular "crushed" housing market on home building companies as such for being the "Sell" and "Avoid" industry currently. While there is a rumor today about Buffett's bid for Hovanian Enterprise (HOV), do you personally see any value and fundamental still within the industry, to name a few stocks that do give dividends (DHI, PHM, LEN, CTX, KBH, MDC, BZH...)? My gut is Yes but it would contradict the market force and the continuing virus-spiraling down sub-prime mortgage situation that affects many other industries as well.

The short answer is yes. To paraphrase Warren Buffett and other value investors, you simply must buy stocks when the fear in the market (or a sector) reaches a crescendo.

Ethan is asking, have we reached that point? Well, I do not know. Furthermore it does not matter. If the housing market gets worse before it gets better, then housing stocks will likely go lower. So what? The better question is whether the stocks are a value now and how long will they take to bounce back to where they were.

The reason I say it does not matter if they go lower is that I am confident that they are at or close to bargains now. I am already on record and reaffirmed it again this week, that I would be comfortable buying Pulte Homes (NYSE: PHM) all day long at $22 per share now. Since I made that comment it is up, closing Friday at $23.31 for whatever reason. Waiting further for the perfect moment means the stocks could move up without warning, perhaps on an announcement that Buffett has blessed the sector. This happened about two months ago with railroad stocks.

Let's say you bought Pulte last Friday. That is about a 50% discount to it's January 2006 price of $45 and a few months earlier it reached $47. If it took three years to get back to that price your internal rate of return (IRR) exceeds 24%. If it took four years you would be settling for a measley 18% IRR, plus dividends. Those seem like very good returns to me and would beat 95% of your fellow investors. Even a five or six year period would beat the 70 year market averages, I do not see a down side.

I have done this many, many times and been rewarded. I am not a market timer and I do not know when housing stocks will make a strong move upward, but I am confident it will happen and these currently unloved stocks will do so before the majority of investors or sheep ( I mean analysts) will have the courage to make a move.

Those of you who are new to BloggingStocks can check out my other stories and read Chasing Value or Serious Money to find more potential opportunities and verify my track record as well.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm.