Zell predicts housing recovery in spring
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Dow Jones Newswires
8:42 AM CST, February 26, 2008
Real estate billionaire Sam Zell, chairman of Equity Group Investments, suggested the housing market will begin its recovery this spring.
"I think (housing) starts have already pretty much bottomed out," Zell told CNBC Tuesday. "I think sales will start to occur, and we'll start to clean up the inventory."
Referring to the textbook definition of recession, Zell said the economy hasn't experienced two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
"We have yet to have a first quarter of negative growth," he said. "The only solution is time and a lot less panic. It' not a cash crisis, it's a market crisis.
"So in effect, when Citi takes a $10 billion hit, it doesn't mean they have $10 billion less the next day, it means their portfolio has been marked down," he said.
Markups usually follow, he added.
Zell, who is also chairman and CEO of Tribune Co., which publishes the Chicago Tribune, also endorsed Ben Bernanke's reappointment as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
"Bernanke's reduction in interest rates has been spot-on because basically we're going to fix the credit markets by creating a big enough spread between the risk-free costs of capital and what's available. So greed overtakes fear and the game begins again."
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