An Ethically Challenged Media Claims Historic Drop in Real Estate Sales for July 2010

I teach Business Communication on a part-time basis at Anna Maria College. We discuss honesty, integrity and ethics in the way we frame research data. The goal, of course is to be accurate and clear in communicating a message effectively and we learn how easy it is to distort data by simply altering the design of the charts, graphs, or context in which it is presented. Politicians are expert at this sort of thing. And, so is the media.

During the month of July, the media claimed an historical decline in real estate sales. However, the media failed to mention the reason for the decline which was the June 30, 2010 expiration of the tax credits; $8,000 for first time home buyers $6,500 for those of us who had lived in our homes for at least 5 years.

The tax credits in effect provided an artificial stimulus to the demand for single family homes. Once that variable disappeared, the natural laws of supply and demand took over and demand reverted back to normal. So, of course real estate sales for single family homes seemed to have dropped precipitously, which made it seem like a "historical" drop in sales when taken out of context.

Take a look at the numbers, from the Multiple Listing Service and you will notice that home sales have in fact increased from year to year for the period January - August.

2010 2009 %Change

Acton 130 119 9%

Bolton 42 30 40%

Groton 105 86 22%

Harvard 64 49 31%

Lexington 248 205 21%

Littleton 58 41 41%

Sudbury 113 104 9%

Townsend 48 43 12%

Wayland 93 78 19%

Westford 105 108 16%

It is a good habit to question the larger context of things you hear in the media especially this sort of failure to factor in the context of what is stated!