Sarasota readers upset with real estate coverage

Some readers of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, a New York Times paper, are upset with its coverage of the local real estate market, reported reader representative Jay Handelman.

Handelman wrote, “Tuesday’s front page story and the headline “Housing prices are cooling off” heated up several readers, who called to complain.

“One woman said that we were killing the housing market by continuing to publish stories about how bad the market is. She suggested we turn our attention to developers in the area instead.

“Another caller agreed, suggesting that we’re perpetuating the problem by reporting on the decline in median prices.

“Michael Pollick, a business reporter who wrote the story with Stephen Frater, said the figures come from reports by the Florida Association of Realtors.

“‘Every month, they issue reports on existing home sale prices,’ Pollick said. ‘It’s the Realtors who put out the report. We try to analyze it and localize it. And if we didn’t do that, we’d have people saying we’re conspiring with Realtors.’

“”It’s news,’ Frater said. ‘We’re taking numbers that are generated by the Florida Association of Realtors and digest them so they’re understandable to the readers.'”

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