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Is the housing mess the media's fault? Toll CEO says it is

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ForeclosureSo we've heard some pretty dumb excuses for bad corporate performance. Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) blames it on short sellers and reporters. Blaming the weather is an age-old tactic for retailers.

And then there's Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL) CEO Robert I. Toll, who knows how to make the housing market get better: The media needs to stop talking about how bad it is.

It's vaguely reminiscent of one of my favorite movies, Spinal Tap. In the best-known scene, Nigel Tufnel explains to an observer that the band's amps go to 11, rather than 10. The incredulous man asks how that really makes them go louder -- they only go to a certain volume, regardless of what number it's labeled.


So apparently Toll believes that if the media labels housing differently, it will magically make everything better. Stop talking about the subprime crisis and ... poof! No more subprime crisis. Here's what he said on a recent conference call, according to The New York Times:

"Perhaps as the presidential campaign heats up and moves to the front page, negative articles about housing will move off the front page. Then, hopefully, the positive underpinnings of low interest rates, low unemployment and a decent economy will raise new-home-buyer confidence."

Some potential buyers, he says, have "read one too many Times articles, and decided now is not the time to buy a home."

Perhaps there is a certain amount of reflexivity in the housing mess. It gets bad, the papers say it's bad, people get scared, they don't buy, it gets worse, the papers say it got worse, people get scared ...

But there are also legitimate fundamental factors driving the housing downturn, not the least of which is that housing prices have been propped up by easy credit. Maybe the headline shock is driving away some buyers. But what is the media supposed to do? Not report the news?

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Last updated: July 05, 2009: 03:14 PM

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