Categories: OLD Media Moves

Why we should care about inflated real estate numbers

Scott van Voorhis of the Boston Globe writes Friday about the reaction to the disclosure that the National Association of Realtors has inflated home sales data by 14 percent since 2007.

Van Voorhis writes, “Basically, no one believes NAR’s numbers in the first place, so what’s the big deal?

“That’s not true, though. The trade organization’s numbers are widely reported in the business press and scanned for clues as to the direction of the housing market by many others as well.

“Numbers are a basic currency of business journalism – there traditionally haven’t been that many organizations that can pull off a national report. Thankfully, that’s changing but NAR’s numbers are still widely used.

“That’s why this screw up matters.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.