Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com On the other side, pessimists insist that the housing slump is far from over, and that prices will continue falling -- perhaps as much as 20% or more. Excess inventories, they say, are the problem, and some estimate it could be four years before the market absorbs all of that extra supply. Eric Lascelles, the chief economist at money-management firm RBC Global Asset Management Inc., says this is a remarkable time to be a first-time home buyer. A. Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co., an economic consulting firm in Springfield, N.J., says buying now is a terrible idea. Yes: It's a Rare Opportunity By Eric Lascelles This could be the best time in a generation to be a first-time home buyer. alt="[HOME_Lascelles]"/&gt; RBC Global Asset Management ERIC LASCELLES: Investors 'understand that this is the mother of all buyer's markets, and won't last forever.' Cheery views such as this are out of vogue and easy enough to dismiss as the ravings of a serial optimist. And yet this opinion isn't based on any heroic economic assumptions. To the contrary, it is constructed upon a more curmudgeonly foundation: In my estimation, the stock market probably underestimates Europe's woes, U.S. economic growth may fall short of expectations, and -- of greatest relevance