Jim Cramer's Interview with KB Homes CEO Causes Ruckus

NJ Realtors Scream for Cramer's Hide and Write Letters to the Today Show

The wide open, full speed sometimes abrasive but very popular Jim Cramer of CNBC's show Mad Money got one of the country's largest business organizations mad today. His interview with Jeffery Mezger, CEO of KB Homes, left a very dim view of the US housing market. Mezger's statement about how bad the housing market is has caused a drop in the stock of his own company. He says, "We see no signs that the housing market is stabilizing and believe it will be sometime before a recovery begins."

This dismal look on the housing market comes from a man who owns over $9.5 million worth of stock in the industry he was talking about. Jim Cramer's own view of the industry was far more optimistic than that of Mezger and other housing industry insiders. However, with that said the National Association of Realtors is coming out on the other side of this debate as their stance is that real estate is regional and local and that they are seeing far greater signs of recovery.

Locally, here is southern Alabama, the real estate news and advertising is going gangbusters about how great the market is right now. But the statistics released for the month of August show an almost 60% percent drop in home sales over this time last year and the price of the same home sold last year for almost 2% higher. While 2% is not a large number the Alabama real estate market overall has not seen the giant leaps in value that many places have so this small decline in price is devastating to many homeowners who want to sell.

As I write this article, the news comes that Foxtons, a New Jersey based Real Estate Company, is closing its doors and laying off over 300 employees. It is ironic that the NJ Association of Realtors is leading the charge against Cramer and the Today show.

The NJ Realtors association called for an apology based on Cramer's overall view of the real estate industry. Of course he refused to retract the statements he made and as the day unfolds it appears that he was more right than the realtors believe.