Arizona Daily Star Throwing Thorns at Real Estate Agents
May 23, 2008
Post Tags: Arizona-Daily-Star , Arizona-Home-Prices , Federal-Housing-Enterprise-Oversight , Tucson-local-real-estate-agents
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Open the paper this morning to more of the typical kind of reporting we see every week. Seems there have been some sales price declines in the first quarter of this year. 
Tucson down 2.9 percent, meaning we have lost some of the nearly 80% run up in valuation since 2004. This really is terrible news. Please notice these figures released are for the first quarter, that ended almost two months ago. And in typical fashion the value lost on a $200,000 home was figured on the 5.5% loss of the state and not the 2.9% for Tucson.
At the end of the article did you notice that while the rest of the country has seen an increase of 288% since 1980 AZ homes are up 307% for that same period of time.
Throwing a Thorn for the Future
So the Star decided to throw a thorn at real estate agents:
“Several Sundays ago, we stopped by a couple of open houses and two real estate agents from two different companies told us that the Tucson housing market had probably hit bottom and housing prices would start to go up in the next 60 to 90 days. Both told us the same thing almost verbatim — the media are about 90 days behind and don’t believe what you read. We don’t know what the talking points will be at open houses this weekend, but “the media” did not churn out the Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight statistics.”
I can tell you exactly what the talking points will be.
- The media is 60 to 90 days behind
- The FHEO report is two months old
- The agents said “probably hit bottom” and would start to go up in 60 to 90 days.
- That is almost a 6 months spread in time
The “Arizona Daily Star” should have kept this thorn in its pants.
Finally, why is the media 60 to 90 days behind? Because most of the sources they use to report about the market “Today” are 60 to 90 days old. A lot can and often does happen in 60 to 90 days. Looking back 90 days, and projecting the future in 90 days is an overall 6 month spread.
The “Arizona Daily Star” might want to take this time differential into consideration the next time it decides to throw a thorn at Tucson local real estate agents for calling the reporting of the market in such a negative manner.
As evidence of this the overall value of homes in Tucson have increased close to 80% in the past 4 years, the quarterly loss is 2.9% not bad considering the economy and mortgage market. Is the Headline “Arizona Home Owners Give Back A Small Percentage of their Gain in First Quarter of 2008” No it is “AZ home prices fall at fastest rate ever”
No “the media” didn’t churn out the FHEO statistics, it just chose to sensationalize those statistics.
Anybody want to give The “Arizona Daily Star” A Thorn?
