"Albuquerque Home Sales Drop 25%"...Did They Really?

Albuquerque Journal Jan 30, 2009, Headline top of the fold story "TOUGH SALE" ...the average price of homes sold in December dropped a whopping 25% from the preceding year. Meanwhile the number of homes sold plummeted 25% in 2008 - nearly double the 13% drop seen nationally."

My 83 year old father and I shared an early morning cup of coffee as I read stats provided by the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors. "I don't believe the Realtor's Association numbers" my dad stated matter of factually. Never having been a Realtor himself, though buying and selling more land, farm, commercial and residential real estate that anyone I know; my mother was a REALTOR® my sister and me to.

"Don't believe everything you read in the paper." dad said, "check the facts for yourself" seeing my concerned look as I read the article with puzzled interest. Didn't I just tell a seller I thought prices in Albuquerque NE had declined about 10% in 2008. Yikes was I that far off?

Maybe in a time when some areas of the country did have such a decline, I was sure they did not fall 25% in Albuquerque. But then the S&P 500 sure dropped a good 40% in 2008. Was I wrong and the Journal right? I clipped the newspaper article to remind myself to email the article to my clients, most of whom don't get the morning paper all downloaded and printed out like my dad.

But there it was, front page center & top of the fold the graphic with a red line plunging like a Bank of America stock chart, 25% in December 08.

Thinking of the buyers and sellers I'm presently very thankful to have, I finished coffee with dad and made a beeline to login our MLS. I knew December was slow, but I did work this very market, and I sure did not see any 25% decline. The MLS is a great data base, I searched it, and just like my dad now I'm not believing my own association numbers.

To my great relief the next day I saw a revision listed, page two, two columns wide four inch's long "Realtors Revise Dec. Numbers" Price of Average Metro Area Home down 9%, Not 25%.

It seems the graphic and the story was based on incorrect numbers provided by the Greater Association of Albuquerque Realtors. It was a typo the association chairman noticed.

Wait there is more! The association chairman had not received any calls from the 3500 or so members when the story appeared in the Journal. Wow. None? Has all the recent bad news so inoculated us that we don't recognize a headline story so incorrect?

Kent Davis, QB, MBA