NBC's Mad Money host Jim Cramer has been telling investors for months that it's stupid to put your money in real estate.
This is the same guy who only last week told investors not to take their money out of Bear Stearns -- right before it crashed to $2 a share.
Here's what happened as archived by business writers and YouTube bloggers.
As anyone with a piggy bank knows, we're in a money crisis because investment banks conspired with lenders to buy subprime-loaded mortgage-backed securities that blew up in their faces when borrowers started to default in record numbers.
Investment bank Bear Stearns was riding high at over $171 a share on January 17, 2008. By March 11, the stock had plummeted to $63. That's the day an emailer wrote Cramer asking if he should be worried about Bear Stearns liquidity and get his money out of there.
Cramer responded, "No, no, no! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they're more likely to be taken over. Don't move your money from Bear."
The next day J.P. Morgan Chase & Co announced that it was purchasing Bear for $2 a share.
What's worse than having black paint all over your crystal ball is not having the balls to own up to your mistake.
When he was called on his expensive error, Cramer tried to sell it that he was talking about keeping your money in Bear's bank, not the stock. That the bank's money is being guaranteed by the Federal Reserve.
While it could be argued that the investor was also talking about the bank and not the stock, the question was asked on Cramer's stock blog, making it clear that the investor was worried about his stocks.
After Bear crashed on the 17th, Cramer's show that night filmed him saying -- you're going to get bailed out "with the hedgies -- as long as you didn't own the common stock."
DonHarrold.net has proof, says the operator, that on March 11, 2008 Jim Cramer actually listed Bear Stearns as a "Buy," but after Harrold's video aired, the buy disappeared on March 17th, causing Harrold to say Cramer rewrote history.
The reason we bring this to your attention is that Cramer has also been saying don't buy real estate for months.
Which is interesting as housing inventories are at their highest in years, interest rates are below six percent and housing prices are lower. If you had that criteria for a stock that you know everyone wants but might not be able to afford, wouldn't you rate housing as a "buy?"
Don't listen to Cramer. As he told Hillary Clinton in an interview, he's from Wall Street. He's not from Main Street.
