Don’t just read the headlines of a news story - read the last paragraph first to get the real story.  Headlines are written to grab your attention and sell newspapers. Today, the headline of the print version of the Mercury News shouts “Grimmer Economic Forecast For State;”  The online version more dispassionately states “State’s Economy to See Longer Recession.

Toward the end of the article, the Mercury News quotes Jerry Nickelsburg of UCLA’s Anderson Forecast, in saying  “…. all of the excess that was the housing bubble is now burned off.” The UCLA study , while not rosy, toward the end of it’s press release positively states “The economy will begin to pick up by 2010 and by the end of next year the state’s economy will begin to grow at something resembling normal levels.”

Thanks go to Dave Walsh, Alain Pinel Realtors’ Almaden Office Manager, for this insight on reading the news in his talk at this mornings’ SCCAOR breakfast meeting.

The glass may not yet be half full yet, but it appears to be filling up rather than draining.  That’s the buzz in our APR sales meeting, where Realtors report that more serious buyers are coming to open houses than in the past several weeks.