In George Chamberlin’s column [By George: Words for Investors [North County Times]](http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/12/11/business/chamberlin/19_31_2212_10_05.txt) in San Diego provides some plain language to the discussion of the current state of the real estate market. He is a TV and radio commentator.

* After the Fed release its quarterly household wealth report, CNBC ran alerts that Americans were deeper in debt than ever before but the report said that net worth rose to a record level.

* Foreclosures are lower today than a year ago

* As far as a slowdown in sales, the California Association of Realtors said it took 34 days to sell a house in October. A year ago it took 33 days.

* The NAR report that pending home sales dropped 3.3% in November and that was reported as a sign of collapse yet in California, they rose 0.8% indicating that real estate is local.

* The UCLA Anderson Forecast calls for a crash of Southern CA real estate prices over the next few years yet excludes San Diego county from their stats.

* Wall Street has a vested interest in seeing housing slide to prompt more people to return to the financial markets.

Although this commentary is California-orientated and I am not an advocate for the real estate industry, the lesson here is for the media to fairly interpret the information released.