Real Estate #'s Buried In Snow?

I can understand why the president of the Real Estate Board of Cambridge would want to try and paint a pretty picture but let's call a spade a spade. Lipstick on a pig only gets the farmer in trouble.

In the Cambridge Homes insert on Friday February 20th there was a "report" by C Warrington, Twire. In this "report" Mike Toffner, President of the Real Estate Board of Cambridge, stated that January house sales were up 14% over December. It is true that January house sales were up over December. The stats that I find released from the board show December had 95 houses sold and January had 109. Here is the issue with this glamorized statistic. Traditionally January increases over December, that is the norm! Poking around I found stats that show last year it went from 124 to 177 and the year before from 151 to 196. Telling us that January house sales are up over December is like saying the we had more snow in January than July. If they told us that there was 35% less snow this year than last year and snowfall has dropped by more 50% in the last 2 years it might mean something.

Now snow fall has not changed like that for us here in Cambridge but the housing market has. So far since October when the economic crisis became a part of our everyday lives we have seen continual 30%+ drops in housing sales versus last year. In January that was also coupled with a 4.9% average price decrease over last January.



Things may not be pretty but let's not stick our heads in the snow, or worse, shovel it on our neighbour's head. Maybe the Real Estate Board of Cambridge needs a Shovel Cam!

M