Even Homebuilders Can't Pretend All's Well

Nobody in real estate wants to hear the truth. The truth sets these people into servitude. They just want to hear that things are bumping along the bottom or that there are buys or that things could get better.

My only conclusion is that they were not on the Lennar (LEN - commentary - Cramer's Take) conference call. They have not read the UBS report from Wednesday that voiced concerns about the survival of Standard Pacific (SPF - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Pulte (PHM - commentary - Cramer's Take). They haven't listened to Toll Brothers (TOL - commentary - Cramer's Take).

There simply isn't a group with more self interest in telling lies about how good things can get in housing than the people on the earnings conference calls for KB Home (KBH - commentary - Cramer's Take), Lennar, Standard Pacific, Centex (CTX - commentary - Cramer's Take), et al. These guys need to say things are great. Hovnanian (HOV - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Beazer (BZH - commentary - Cramer's Take) simply must say things are better in order in stimulate demand.

But they won't. They simply won't.

That's amazing. They won't do it.

I went on the Today show Wednesday and said basically what these home builders are saying. The real estate industry -- meaning, of course, the brokers -- is furious.

I find it all so odd. Here I am just reporting on the facts as these self-interested builders say it. It would be just totally inaccurate to say anything else. There is pressure on me to correct my comments.

How can I do that? How can I do that given the homework I have done?

We are in an amazing moment when the people least inclined to tell the truth -- those who need home sales to accelerate in order to save their companies -- simply won't say anything other than "We just had a huge step function down in sales."

I am going with them.

Truth matters. Even in real estate.

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Please note that due to factors including low market capitalization and/or insufficient public float, we consider Standard Pacific and Beazer to be small-cap stocks. You should be aware that such stocks are subject to more risk than stocks of larger companies, including greater volatility, lower liquidity and less publicly available information, and that postings such as this one can have an effect on their stock prices.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this post.

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