The National Association of Realtors (NAR) lowered their forecast for U.S. home prices and sales.

I don’t follow the NAR forecasts closely because they tend to be overly optimistic, similar to the way journalists tend to be overly pessimistic.

Nevertheless, from August they lowered their 2006 median home price forecast from $229,000 to $225,900, and the existing-home sales from 6.61 million (6.5% lower than 2005) to 6.54 million (7.6% lower than 2005).