Do the media actually skew too positive about the housing industry?
For as long as our country’s housing slump has dragged on, I’ve heard complaints from real estate agents that the members of the press are making things worse by relentlessly focusing on the negative.
I respectfully disagree. News is news, is my argument. If housing sales are falling, if housing prices are dipping and if foreclosures are soaring, well, no amount of positive spin is going to make those realities go away. At the same time, writing about them is spreading negativity: It’s honestly reporting the news.
Earlier this week, I read an interesting report from blogger Chris Martenson who writes about how the media too often blindly follow whatever spin the folks at the National Association of Realtors sends to them. This is interesting because the people at the National Association of Realtors are also the ones who assured everyone that there was absolutely, positively no way that there was a housing bubble, and that even if such a bubble didn’t exist, it would never, ever pop.
Well, we see how right the association was about that.
Martenson wrote on Monday about the overwhelmingly euphoric take by the media on a news release sent out by the Realtors’ association. The association trumpeted the fact that home sales rose 5.1 percent in February from January.
This is good news, right? Well … it’s not bad news. But good news? It’s hard to tell.
The reason, as Martenson points out, is that home sales traditionally rise from February to January. It happens most every year. So the news that sales rose in February this year is not a surprise. This is what should have happened.
Now, if sales went down again last month? That would have been news. Really bad news. If sales stayed more or less the same? That, too, would have been bad. But sales going up about 5 percent? That’s neither good nor bad. That’s expected.
Martenson is right to point out that hiding from the truth is what got the country in the mess it’s in now. I’ve learned not to ever entirely trust the news that comes out of the Realtors association. This is the same group that not only pushed the whole “no-housing-bubble” theory but also stated repeatedly during the housing boom that people who sold their homes without the help of a Realtor usually lost money. That theory doesn’t hold true, either.
The lesson here? Look at everything that comes from any trade association with a skeptical eye. Trade associations exist to boost whatever industry it is they serve. They don’t exist to provide accurate news. That’s supposed to be the job of the media.
