We're all tired of reading doom and gloom everywhere we look - and potential buyers are being frightened into inaction and pessimism. Less people are making offers and offers are often way below sensible.
This morning's business headlines in the St. Petersburg Times (and in a weekend edition, no less) read "Home prices show big drop".
Wrong impression, if not exactly the wrong statistics.
The tables in the Times compared the average price change in the last year in Hillsborough County and the median price change in the last year in Pinellas County. The writer alleges that Hillsborough County only keeps track of the average. If that's correct, why not compare the average price in Pinellas County, since the Pinellas Realtor Organization keeps track of both the average and the median prices.
Could it be because the newspaper would prefer to be pessimistic and show the mean price declining 14% instead of showing that the average price change from Nov 2006 to Nov 2007 was an increase of 4.6% for single family homes and an increase of 6% for condos?
Don't know if it will be published, but I sent a Letter to the Editor today asking that question.
(link was corrected from original post)
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Good Idea I am about to do the same
Did you know I can't log on to your other site, I have to have a password etc... Did you want us to go there? I would like to read the letter.
We have the same issue with our local paper. They will write a totally negative headline like Home sales down 20%. Then in the body of the same article they will state the median price is up 3%. My question is why? The majority of their readers could care less if there are less transactions they want to know what their home is worth. It seems they are just focusing on the negative to sell more papers. Sad really.
Is is possible that the writer doesn't know the difference between median and average?
I am a math matician and one thing I earned early on is that - figures can be manipulated to prove YOUR case.
Its just another way of manipulating the figures.
Charlie - good for you! the more of us that do that, the better.
Missy - thanks for pointing that out. Yes, I'd like you to go there. I've corrected the link above to
http://blog.ssimms.com/public/item/192572
"public" was missing. I'm so glad you checked and let me know.
Jim - I guess negative headlines sell more papers than positive ones. It's unfortunate that they aren't more ethical in presenting a balanced picture. Too few readers learn in school how to recognize slant.
Lenn - it's possible, but I would hope for more in a journalist. The writer said that the Tampa board "keeps tabs on its home prices differently, using average prices instead of median prices." You'd think from this that he knew there was a difference.
Rebecca - yes, you can manipulate the group you're measuring, a subset of the group, a variation in time period, etc. Words can also be used to slant material.
Sharon, I'm glad to read that you brought it to the Editor's attention, instead of ignoring it.
Eric - thanks. We all need to be more proactive rather than just too busy.