by Calculated Risk on 1/25/2013 05:46:00 PM

From Nick Timiraos at the WSJ: Six Housing Forecasters Who Got Things Right in 2012

A few analysts, of course, did offer housing forecasts at the beginning of the past year that turned out to be largely correct. What’s more: some of these analysts had also accurately forecast the housing sector’s slowdown as the market neared its peak in 2005 and 2006.

Here are the six forecasters.

On Tom Lawler:

Last year, he began writing about how Phoenix had hit a “bottom” in real estate, a prediction that became the genesis of this Page One story in the Journal last year. Nationally, Mr. Lawler called for gains of nearly 20% in new home sales to an annual rate of 365,000 [the Census Bureau reported 367,000 this morning] and gains of around 24% in total housing starts (preliminary estimates show they were up around 28%).

Thanks to Nick - I appreciate the mention!  (others mentioned include Ivy Zelman, Glenn Kelman, Joseph LaVorgna and John R. Talbott).