It's that time of year when everyone makes bold predictions about what lies ahead in 2023. Just last month, the California Association of Realtors projected the average price of houses in the Golden State would drop nearly 9% next year.

But I have my own theory. Yes, prices are coming down, but that doesn't mean sellers are losing out. Unless they purchased their homes within, say, the last 12 months, sellers aren't taking losses -- rather, they are taking less profit.

To me, prices don't truly "fall" until homeowners sell for less than they paid. Houses today may sell for less than they would have, say, six months ago, but still for more than what sellers paid.

You can't lose what you never had, which, in this case, is the equity you build up over time as home values rise and fall. The only way to cash in on equity is to sell your place or borrow against it. Unless you do one or the other, "equity" is a nebulous term for something you know is there, but you can't touch.

To support my hypothesis, I give you the latest sales report from data services company ATTOM: The profit margin on the median single-family home slipped from 57.6% in the second quarter to 54.6% in the third. There's still a lot of profit to be eaten away before sellers actually lose money.

Housing is already in a recession, and the Federal Reserve Board isn't likely to take its foot off the brakes until 2024, according to Robert Dietz, the chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders.

Dietz believes the sector will rebound in 2024, but until then, the slowdown will only exacerbate the shortage of new houses. "We've been under-building since 2008," he says, noting that the market is short about 1 million houses nationwide.

This year's decline in homebuilding is the first since 2011. "We finally got to 1.1 million starts" last year, Dietz said. "That's in line with what we think we need to meet demand. And by 2025, we should be back to that level."

Manufactured homes, aka mobile homes, are a less expensive alternative to site-built houses. Last year, the median price of a factory-made house was just $61,400 -- that's $220,000 less than that of a conventional single-family house.

One of the knocks against manufactured homes is that they lose value, rather than appreciate. But according to LendingTree, that hasn't been the case over the last five years.

Between 2016 and 2021, the median value of a manufactured house increased by an average of 34.6%. Single-family houses increased just barely more -- by 35.4% -- over the same period.

Impressive: According to the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association, homeowners aged 62 and older saw their combined housing wealth reach a record $11.6 trillion in the second quarter.

More Signs of the Apocalypse

-- Thanks to a title company error, a woman who thought she was buying a house outside of Reno wound up with the entire neighborhood: 84 houses plus two common areas. It seems the title company cut-and-pasted the legal description for the whole shebang onto her deed.

-- In Texas, a retired couple is being sued by their homeowners association for $250,000. Their crime: feeding ducks. According to the suit, neighbors claim the ducks defecated on their property and destroyed their gardens.

-- How would you like to live in a $1.7 million house in San Ramon, California, for free? Anita and Mahesh Khurana did just that for years: The couple made six payments on their loan and then stopped cold, somehow avoiding foreclosure since 2009. They were finally evicted this summer. But they may not hold the record: According to one source, someone in New York fended off foreclosure for more than two decades.

More buyers of newly built houses paid cash in the third quarter than those who financed their purchases through the Federal Housing Administration.

According to Census Bureau data, 7.5% of all the new houses sold during the period were backed by the FHA. That's the smallest share since the fourth quarter of 2007, economist David Logan of the National Association of Home Builders points out.

On the other hand, 9.5% went to all-cash buyers. That's a 20-year high, Logan notes.

Typically, cash buyers are those who sold their homes in expensive markets and moved to less costly places. Loaded with a pocketful of moolah, they can pay whatever a seller is asking, and then some. And that drives prices higher.

Census data also shows that 78% of the new places sold in the third quarter were financed with conventional loans, even though FHA-insured mortgages are somewhat easier to qualify for. In the existing-home market, meanwhile, 22% of the resale houses sold in September went for cash, NAHB reports.

Selling a property fully furnished is fairly common in vacation-home markets, where a house without furnishings can become a chore for buyers rather than an immediate retreat. But it's probably not a smart decision most anywhere else.

In the popular Colorado ski town of Crested Butte, furnished listings are expected, reports Briggs Freeman Sotheby's agent Shelle Carrig. "Vacant homes always take longer to sell unless there is a noticeable price incentive," she said in a piece for Inman.com.

That's not the case in Dallas, where "very few homes" are sold with their original furnishings, says Lucy Johnson, a Briggs Freeman Sotheby's executive. Most buyers want to put their own touch on a new place, she told Inman.

Indeed, it's highly likely that wannabe buyers will simply scroll past any place listed as "fully furnished" when they peruse the market. Even when the idea is intriguing, they're not likely to give a property much thought unless the furnishings are up to date.

"Furnishings that aren't on trend and fresh can prevent some prospective buyers from seeing the underlying positive attributes of any home," Johnson warns.

Then there's the matter of cost. In Florida, where thousands of houses and apartments are sold full of furniture, plates, silverware, pictures and sometimes even towels and sheets, many sellers believe that offering their properties "turnkey" adds value and justifies a higher price.

But some buyers may not see it that way, says Christopher Carter of the Waterfront Realty Group in Naples. Carter is also a mortgage broker and writes a popular blog about Florida real estate. "In most buyers' minds, furnished real estate asking prices already reflect added cost, which they may or may not be willing to pay," he wrote on his blog.

Beyond all this, selling a furnished house tends to complicate the transaction -- in more ways than one. Consider sales taxes, for example.

In most places, sales tax is not levied on the sale of a house. (There are transfer taxes and other fees, just not a sales tax, usually.) But furnishings sold with a house are considered tangible personal property. As such, says Carter, they are taxable.

If the contract, or an addendum to it, mentions the personal property remaining in the house, the seller may be responsible for collecting and remitting the tax, Carter points out. In Florida, that's 6% of its value. Some sellers' agents "unknowingly create a taxable situation when they attach a written inventory" to the contract, he warns.

But whether there is an itemized list or not, the value of the furnishings could very well become part of the property's assessed value. Consequently, the buyer's property taxes could be higher than they need to be. More important, the buyer's lender is probably going to look askance at the deal, and the appraiser will want a say, as well.

Carter points out that lenders lend funds for real estate, not personal property. So if the contract includes furnishings, the lender is going to either send back the borrower's application or deny it altogether.

Why? The house is a permanent structure that stands as the collateral behind the mortgage. "Houses and condos usually stay where they were when purchased," he says, "which is not always the case with couches, beds, dressers and lanai lounge chairs."

It's OK to list items like ceiling fans, light fixtures and draperies that are attached to the property and staying put. Ditto for major kitchen and laundry appliances: Even though they are removable, they usually convey unless the contract states otherwise.

But if the contract lists wall hangings and a golf cart, "the buyer's lender will red-flag the contract and make everyone start over," writes Carter.

"Even when specific or itemized value is not given to the personal property, mentioning it at all in a written real estate contract artificially raises the inferred property value," which lenders won't allow, Carter says. The result: unnecessary delays that neither party wants.

There's also going to be an issue with the appraisal. Appraisers are trained to remove the value of any personal property mentioned in the contract when coming up with a valuation. That is, they must subtract personal property from the agreed-upon sales price -- which, of course, means a lower appraisal.

If the house doesn't appraise for enough, three things can happen: The buyer will have to come up with more cash for a down payment, the seller will have to lower the price to make up the difference, or the buyer and seller can throw up their hands and walk away.

The better way to handle selling a furnished house is to sell the house separately from the furnishings. Place a price on each that will add up to what you wanted for them together. Then the buyer can either pay cash for the furnishings or choose to finance both -- the house with a mortgage and the furnishings with a personal loan.

"The check is in the mail" is one of the great lies of all time. Another is, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

Real estate has its own set of lies, especially among agents who want to list your house for sale. One is, "I can get you a higher price than anyone else." Another: "I have a pool of buyers in my hip pocket who want to buy your house right now."

These and other deceitful statements were laid bare recently in a post on the Inman real estate news service by Carl Medford of Benchmark Properties, a Keller Williams agency in Fremont, California. "There are many more lies out there," he says, "but these are the most common ones I encounter regularly."

Let's dive into them.

-- Higher price. Medford says this tactic, also known as "buying a listing," is complete hooey. Many agents promise to land sellers a high price -- higher than any other agent can bring -- just to obtain the listing. But this is usually just false hope.

A few weeks later, when the property hasn't drawn much, if any, attention from buyers, the agent will say the price has to be lowered. But lowering a price often stains a listing: It tells savvy buyers and their agents that you need to sell, and that you might even go lower.

The better way is to price the house realistically in the first place. In a hot market, if your house is any good, buyers will flock to it -- and probably bid up the price anyway. "The truth is, buyers are the ones who actually determine prices, not sellers or their agents," Medford says.

So ask the agents you're considering to prepare a comprehensive market analysis that shows what similar houses in your area sold for and what others are currently listed at. You can price your place at the top of that range if it is sure to sell, or shoot for the middle if your house is just so-so.

Then, after you find an agent you like, reevaluate the market just before your listing goes live and price it accordingly.

-- Pool of buyers. Agents telling sellers they have a pocketful of buyers just itching to buy your house is another common tactic that has been used through the years. But it does not serve your interests.

Even if this promise were true -- and it's probably not -- it's better to offer your house to the entire homebuying universe by entering it into the local multiple listing service. Says Medford: "You will usually get the best offers by going live on the market and letting everyone out there compete for your home, not just one buyer whom the listing agent controls."

He also makes another important point: If the agent does, indeed, have a buyer lined up, then he or she will be representing both of you. But it's almost impossible to give both sides an even shake. Better to have an agent who represents your interests and yours alone.

-- Better access. Similarly, listing agents like to brag that because they belong to a regional or national chain, they have great access to buyers. But the chances that your eventual buyer comes from that network are slim. Besides, it's not really an advantage.

According to the latest National Association of Realtors report, more than 9 out of 10 recent buyers used the internet to search for homes. For almost half, this was the first step. In contrast, contacting an agent was the first step for only 19% of buyers.

The typical web search entry is something like "houses for sale in (the desired area)" -- not "houses listed on (a particular realty chain's website)." Most franchises do allow visitors to their sites to search for listings anywhere they have offices, but whether buyers use their sites or the MLS, it's likely they will see everything out there.

-- No. 1. Some agents like to boast that they are the top-selling agent in their market. And it's not a bad idea to list with a top seller: He or she is likely getting the job done for clients.

But it's worth asking: top-selling, according to who? Are they the No. 1 agent at their office? In the neighborhood? In the metro area, the state, the country? Document their claims and check out the references.

Try to determine how close their homes' eventual selling prices are to their original listing prices. Does the agent consistently land deals for more than the listing price? Or are they always under -- and if so, by how much? Past performance will help measure the agent's negotiating ability.

-- "I'll buy your house." An agent's promise to buy your house if it doesn't sell isn't necessarily a fib, per se. Many realty brokerages will do that. But the question is, at what price? Is the pledge in writing? And once that price is set, do they actually live up to their part of the bargain?

Here, ask the agent for references and ask those sellers the above questions. Also ask if the agent nickel-and-dimed them for repairs that were never mentioned when the house was first listed.