Step Back from Perrysburg – Some National Tea Leaves
April 9th, 2009 . by Jon ModeneYou know, stats / statistics are dangerous things.
Easily manipulated.
Slice the data in the time frame/price range/criteria you want . . . and you can make it say “BLUE”. Do it in the way I want and I can make the same data say “RED”.
Very dangerous. Deceptive. At least that’s what my statistics teacher at Duke told us before he taught!
N.A.R. (the National Association of REALTORS) comes out with some stats. Sales are UP in the past month!!! Yeah!!!
But comparing one month against another . . .
When you know that the current months’ “bump” is solely due to depressed REO assets selling . . .
When many local markets are cratering . . .
Highly dubious. Almost deceptive. Even though technically true.
But what of the big, national statistical picture? Can we look at ALL the numbers? What will that tell us????
Here is the picture:
National numbers are both up 4.7% but they are also down by 41.1% over the past year.
There is no honest way to say that sales are up.
The days of a million or 1.2 million homes selling per year in the USA? Gone. For a long time.
Pricing and your homes’ pricing strategy are all important in this market.
In Perrysburg and everywhere else apparently.
