More Negative Publicity For The Home Sales Market

The National Association of Realtors needs to "revise" its home sales figures going back to 2007. Before you get any hope up, remember this is the same organization that seems to constantly flood the media with negative stats about home sales.

Yet, according to today's news, they have revisions. Now the NAR is showing everybody that home sales statistics are actually WORSE going back over 4 years:


http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20111212/business/111219962/


This story indicates that some sales "were counted twice" and adds that it has something to do with the reporting of the Census Bureau.

Sorry, but this story raises more questions than it answers. What on earth does the Census Bureau "reporting" have to do with actual home sales? How did it take four years for this to come out?

Those questions, of course, are in addition to the ones I have been raising for more than two years. I'd still like to know why the NAR continues to release negative home sales statistics at all. My understanding is that this organization represents thousands of realty agents who are in turn representing millions of people who have been looking to sell their home(s) during this market downturn.

Putting out information such as "worse than a year ago" has no bearing on someone's decision whether or not to purchase a home today. That has been bad enough. Now, we're supposed to look the other way when it is revealed that these statistics were not correct, and in fact should have been even worse.

Ouch.

How A Hospital Can Help Chicago Home Sales

This "business" story about a hospital expansion and the jobs it will create is the type of news story which should attract the attention of savvy residential real estate agents as well as potential home sellers.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-northwestern-memorial-hospital-to-create-jobs-20111201,0,3102625.story


Agents in the Chicago area should have their database to the point of being able to identify current and potential clients who could be interested in knowing about these potentially available jobs, and letting them know. For that matter, their entire database could be notified. People certainly remember where a solid employment lead comes from.

If I were considering or already trying to sell a home near that hospital that could fit the price range of construction workers and the other positions about to be created, I would get my agent working on making it known to the H.R. Department of that hospital within 24 hours.

Here's hoping that these ideas will be used for better marketing of real estate, instead of merely pumping out negative home price and sale statistics every couple of weeks.