Revisiting renting vs. buying

The debate continues about the advantages of renting vs. buying a home in the current economy.

To me, the debate should be continuing within the real estate community about how realty associations and organizations continue to add sparks to the fire instead of constantly going for a positive spin.

Here is another set of media examples:

First, here is a story about a realty association reporting a "mixed bag" of news, including the statistics showing the severe drop in home sales compared with one year ago.

As I keep pointing out, potential buyers at this moment don't care what happened one year ago, especially when it makes the current market look negative. If someone thinking about purchasing a home right now sees that sales are 35% less than one year ago, they might give up their idea, thinking that there are plenty of reasons not to proceed. There is no way this information is positive for local realty agents as a result.

The kicker is that the facts in this media story were provided by the Association of Realtors, which includes hundreds of realty agents paying dues only to have this negative publicity distributed to the media:

http://www.foxprovidence.com/dpps/news/local_news/region_3/warwick-single-family-home-sales-down-in-oct._3663498


Then, from the same day, this story about how in some cases (including this busy area of Southern California) it could cost a family MORE to rent an apartment than to own a condo. That might make some renters want to contact a local realty agent.

The crushing blow is that this is a reporter's story, and not released by a realty company or realty association:


http://www.the-signal.com/section/36/article/37263/


If realty agents and associations are not going to be aggressive and serious about taking steps to improve the marketplace, how is the market going to get any better? Isn't it in their best interests to do so?