mainstream media Archives - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

Even the casual reader of our little corner of internet real estate knows that I’m not terribly fond of the mainstream media (MSM). I’ve met some very cool people that work in the MSM industrial complex, and I don’t hold that against them. Heck, my own daughter has her eyes set on a higher education in journalism. I don’t believe my disdain for the MSM is the fault of the worker bee collective.

It may be a problem with what we the citizens, the clients of the MSM, have come to accept. Or expect. Whatever.

What’s my problem with the MSM?

Sensationalism. One-sided reporting. Doom and gloom.

Lying in bed this morning pursing through the half-billion news and whatnot feeds I have (bless the iPad) I was struck, yet again, with how negative the MSM is about the real estate market. Here are some sample headlines from the past few days:

Homebuyers Hunker Down as Housing’s Drag on Economy May Worsen
Housing bust derails path to assisted living for some
New housing market stays behind last year’s pace
Lack of Move-Up Buyers Holding Back House Prices
Housing market holds back local economy
Slow crawl to recovery: Builders still reeling from housing bust
July real estate market fell short of expectations
Housing market struggling to recover
‘Dysfunctional’ housing market has bad month
Brokerage firms feel sting of valley foreclosure crisis

My first thought in scrolling through the negativity was of one of my favorite movie characters of all time ”“ Sergeant Oddball in Kelly’s Heroes.

Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?

— Sgt. Oddball.

Now don’t get me wrong, the Phoenix real estate market is not all puppies and bunnies. There is a lot wrong with today’s real estate market.

But there are some right things, or at least turning right, that seem to consistently escape the attention of the MSM. Oddball’s “beautiful and righteous” may be a stretch, but “hopeful” is well within reach.

Here are some headlines that could be written today, at least with respect to the Phoenix real estate market:

June home sales sets record
Housing inventory at 2003 levels
Home seller’s seeing multiple offers
Home sales up over 20% since 2009
Seller’s average getting 96% of list price

The problem with those headlines is of course, they are not sensationalistic. They don’t sell newspapers and ads, despite the truth such articles would convey. Why not provide a fair and balanced perspective on the real estate market? “Fair and Balanced”, hey that’d be an awesome tag line for a MSM company! Oh, wait. Someone already claimed that title”¦ There’s a difference though in proclaiming from on high that you are “fair and balanced” and actually, you know, being fair and balanced.

Maybe that company and their pals should think about reporting the other side of the story sometime. I’m not saying they should hide the bad news and blow sunshine up people’s posteriors. But what is wrong with occasionally reporting the complete story? Does everything reported in the MSM have to be of the doom and gloom there is no hope of recovery ever and we’re all going to die in the poorhouse variety?

It’s not great out there folks, but there are some positive indicators the market is turning. I’m not foolish enough to “call the bottom” or predict anything about the near-term future of the Phoenix real estate market. But denying some of the facts, whether they sell newspapers or not, doesn’t make them go away”¦

If you’ve read Phoenix Real Estate Guy for any length of time, you will know I’m not exactly a “mainstream media” fanboy. The MSM’s tendency to write sensationalistic headlines and copy is annoying at best, and down right false and/or misleading at worst.

Yesterday was no different.

Two Associated Press writers, Derek Kravitz and Janna Herron, blew it in their article Home prices plummet in most big US cities (that particular link is to the Wall Street Journal copy of the AP article. You can also find it reprinted in the Washington Post, San Francisco Examiner, BusinessWeek, The Miami Herald and approximately 38,400 news sources according to Google).

In an email to their subscribers today (and in a blog post) the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) communicated that they had been misquoted in the AP article. The quote as published by the AP was:

In Phoenix, about 70 percent of all homes with a mortgage were at risk of foreclosure in January, according to the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service.

According to ARMLS, the 70 percent number was gleaned from their February issue of STAT ”“ the monthly Phoenix metro area statistics report that ARMLS publishes. In the February STAT, ARMLS said:

Of the 6,541 total sales in January, 70.2% (4,591) were distressed.

A “distressed sale” is a sale that involves either a short sale (the seller, with lender approval, selling the home for less than what they owe) or a lender-owned property (a home that has been foreclosed on and has reverted back to the lender).

Granted, that is a depressing statistic, but it is a FAR cry from “about 70 percent of all (Phoenix area) homes with a mortgage were at risk of foreclosure in January.” The number of closed distressed sales in a given month has nothing to do with the number of homes across the metro area that are at risk of foreclosure.

The AP blew it.

Maybe you’ll see a half-column inch retraction/correction buried 12 pages deep three days from now in some of the 38,000+ publications that printed the story.

Or maybe not.

What we have here is living evidence of several things:

Humans make mistakes. And reporters are human (at least as best we can tell).
Real estate statistics can be easy to goof up and misinterpret. Particularly if you are not used to reading, analyzing and interpreting them on a regular basis. Sometimes our odd vernacular is confusing ”“ to everyone.
You can’t believe everything you read in the mainstream media (or anywhere else for that matter).

Some folks tend to dismiss “blogs” and “citizen journalism” as being inaccurate, biased and not worth the phosphors on the monitor you are reading. Many people place blind faith and trust into publishers like the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the Associated Press. Their writers and editors are after all, trained professionals.

Both of these groups of people ”“ the blog haters and the undying believers of the mainstream press ”“ are on the far ends of the spectrum. The bottom line is, you shouldn’t place blind trust in any news medium. Read with a critical eye, question everything, and look at multiple sources when something seems suspect.

Oh, and cancel that subscription to the Wall Street Journal. You can get new Phoenix Real Estate guy posts by email, for free”¦

Knock it off with them negative waves…

Even the big boys get it wrong. Associated Press misquotes ARMLS. Shocking!

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