Lies, damn lies and statistics.
A real estate columnist in my old paper writes today that
"The Pending Home Sales Index representing contracts signed in August increased 7.4% from an upward revision in July and is 8.8% higher than August 2007."That would certainly be encouraging, if it were accurate, and I'm confident that her paper will receive no complaints from its real estate advertisers about her column. And that, according to the paper's editor and publisher, is precisely the point.
But what if readers are being delivered a wheelbarrow full of dung? Here are the real statistics for Greenwich contracts.
July, 2008: 39; July, 2007: 40. Call it a draw.
August, 2008: 22; August, 2007: 46. That's 48% down, not 8.8% higher, by my math (and, though I don't pretend to understand what an "upward revision from July" means, Aug. '08's contracts represent a 56% decline from the preceding month, not a 7.4% increase).
September, 2008: 24; September, 2007: 33 - 28% decline
October 1-17, 2008: 6; October 1-17, 2007: 17 - 65% decline.
The last Democrat I admired (and probably ever will), Daniel Patrick
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5 comments:
Good One!
Why the heck do you still care about what that rag has to say, no one in town reads it. 'She' must be one of the 800(I am not including the legitimate 100 realtors in this number) realtors intown who is just doing this as a hobby.
Where is Greenwich Roundup today with Betty's story?
Greenwich Diva
I suffer from low blood pressure, Claudette, so I have to read stuff like that to raise it. Which may explain why I'm a constant reader and commentator on Greenwich Diva! : )
That last good Democrat's name was spelled Moynihan.
Don't know if you are runnning into this, but I see agents refraining from posting properties in "Contract" on mls until after mortgage contingency is cleared. This would make comparison between properties to contract this and past years skewed.
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