Last night I had the great privilege to meet Glenn Kelman and the Redfin gang at the Socketsite drinks in San Francisco. There was a big mix of people including housing consumers, real estate professionals, notable bloggers, and entrepreneurs. What was most interesting was to hear the optimism from various people about the state of housing this year. Everyone acknowledged that the last quarter or two were hard but that 2007 is looking hot.

Interestingly, a couple of headlines this morning have highlighted the generalized and backward nature of news reporting versus the localized and forward looking of people on the ground. For example:

- Toll’s Orders Plunge, Forecasts Larger Land Writedown - largest U.S. luxury home builder, reported a 33 percent plunge in first- quarter orders

- HSBC shares fall after it ups bad loans provisions - “Foreclosures have shown a higher severity” than expected, Chief Executive Michael Geoghegan said on a conference call. “The major impact was taking into account adjustable mortgage resets.”

Please note that housing stocks are down approximately 3.00% this morning on the combined news.

So here we are again juxtaposing the headlines versus the word on the street. What HAS happened versus what IS happening and WILL happen. The global versus the local. Notable blogger and realtor, Kevin Boer in Palo Alto notes that properties are back in multiple offer situations. John Harper of Danville and Andrew Maury of San Francisco are also reporting mutliple offers and a very bright outlook for housing in their areas.
Stay close to your market and look at what is happening on the ground and what is likely to happen and don’t worry about the headlines. My-Currency is committed to help you gather hyper-local information that is forward looking.