Gotta love the screaming headlines yesterday on the census new home sales report. A mainstream media who wants to reassure the American population (and the readers of their homebuilder advertising sections) that all is well
"Unexpected jump in new home sales"
"New home sales stay strong"
"Housing market hanging in there"
But wait, then you had some media who actually read the census report and picked apart the numbers and methodology. Some media who actually DID SOME FRICKING WORK FOR A CHANGE instead of a rip-and-read from the government PR headline. Yes, I'm about as fed up with our MSM as a person can be.
Here are some of the accurate reports:
U.S. house prices fall by 7.3 per cent (from CBC Canada)
Backlog Of Unsold Homes Hits 565,000 (WTOV West Virginia)
New-Home Sales Increase, but ... (ABC)
Here's the truth:
1) Don't trust the government or the NAR for accurate information
2) In this report, the government conveniently revised March downward by 71,000 homes - whoopsie! So April's comparison to the new lower March number was up 4.9%. If it had been compared to the original March number, the April number would have been down 15,000 or down 1.2%
3) Sales were down 5.7% to last year, and prices dropped significantly April vs. March - down 7.3% or $17,410 - in one month! That's your headline.
4) Inventory ballooned to 565,000 unsold homes, or nearly 6 months, record territory
5) The way the census reports homes, any home in any stage of construction counts as a sale. And we all know what's happening out there - cancellations are rampant and only getting worse. A sale, as we all know, is when the contract is fulfilled, the money changes hands, and the buyer gets the keys. Putting $5000 down isn't a sale. So this report is a joke.
May 25, 2006
Disinformation, confusion, manipulation and the lazy media: New Home Sales Up!
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5 comments:
The "good" ABC report has pointed out what has been mentioned here and at Ben Jones' blog. The reporter must read the blogs. better than just repeating what the AP propaganda machine puts out.
Good for him on reporting what is really going on. Worrysome for him that he was scooped by blogs. I believe the blogs are the news source of the future. Remember the CBS scandle on the faked document that brought down Rather? The blogs are what brought out the truth first.
oh.
amen brother.
Thank you for the info. With those headlines it only fuels the realtor/seller greed and justifies the over pricing.
I don't quite understand how these reports are legal.
You forgot the biggest RE hyper machine--the Baltimore Sun. They took the AP report and made up their own title, and a google news search indicated that they were the only ones to use this headline: New Home Sales Soar in Arpil" No joke--here's the link.
http://tinyurl.com/oa992
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