Palm Beach Post Responds To Reader Concerns On Real Estate News Coverage
In my earlier posting on the topic of news coverage (The Media Should Not Make The Real Estate News, July 25, 2006), I mentioned that the Palm Beach Post has not clearly presented the facts. This past Sunday, in C.B. Hanif’s column The Listening Post, he provided a response from the newsroom to my e-mail to him on this topic.
I guess I was not the only one to contact the Post, and in fact the same week they addressed these concerns, they inadvertently printed a graphic that implied real estate “home sales” were down 36%. They corrected this the next day, noting that they meant the number of homes sold, not the sales prices. And Hanif also commented on this error. I guess when you live and breathe the same thing every day it is easy to make assumptions – and build those assumptions into your news reporting. Trouble is, some readers will interpret things differently if they are not made clear enough. The Post says its goal is to “cover news as it happens with as much clarity and balance as we can,” and I hope the newspaper will keep working on the clarity part…
The Post noted why it uses year to year comparisons in its reporting… I agree seasonal variations can be misleading. Typically area sales (number of homes sold) are lowest in July and August, after a flurry of closings right after kids get out of school. Buyer activity is lowest in those months as well. I’m sure the Post realizes that to simply report numbers can cause confusion (if not, maybe it learned that last week). Regardless of which numbers are being reported, it is downright foolish for a newspaper to ignore other patterns in the data and fail to make note of them… such omission will undoubtedly lead to the wrong assumptions by some readers. Especially if the Post then plays up those assumptions, as I mentioned in my previous entry on this topic.
I still believe that when the Post reports the next monthly sales figures it really needs to mention the fact that over the past six to eight months, monthly units sold have not been going down… they have been holding steady and making some gains, on average, from month to month. Let’s hope there’s a bit more clarity…
Here’s a chart demonstrating the latest monthly sales and inventory levels for Central and Northern Palm Beach County.
The red line, “Pended”, indicates homes that went under contract, while “Sold” homes are only recorded as sold when they actually change hands. On a positive note, the inventory increases seem to be flattening out. And you can see a very pronounced seasonal variation in May and June. In 2005, the summer months were not as quiet as usual, but they were followed by the downturn in September.