Saturday, August 28, 2010

The Most Obscure Stat Award

This article in the Calgary Herald is just bizarre - "Condos on the market for less time"

The number of condominiums listed for sale on the Calgary Real Estate Board's MLS system during July totalled 890, down from 918 for the same month last year.

But on a year-to-date basis, the 7,967 new listings this year are nearly 22 per cent higher than for the same seven-month period in 2009.

On average, though, people are taking less time to make the buying decision. This year, the average length of stay on the market is 44 days compared to 53 a year ago.

Overall, the condo segment of the 2010 edition of the resale market is seeing lower sales, higher listings, and slightly - prices.

After reviewing the data the main story is that condos are not on the market as long? Really? Even with sales down 44% and inventory up 55% from the same time last year? Remember DOM only applies to properties that have sold and does not include the amount of time if it has been unsuccessfully listed in the past.

The figure mentioned in the article is the year to date days on market. Looking only at the month of July this number increased to 51 from 50 the same time last year.

5 comments:

squidly77 said...

Talk about bald face lieing.
The media has really let the people down, its sad.

Newspapers like to blame the Internet for declining sales, but their sales didn't began declining in popularity till 2005, about the same time as the U.S. housing disaster began, I think people just got sick of reading their lies and distortions that's all.

Perhaps if newspapers began printing real news again, people might start reading them.

Myself, I believe absolutely nothing that I read in newspapers, total trash talk.

Carioca Canuck said...

DOM is a fraudulent stat to begin with, that has ZERO relevance "as presently reported", because it is easily manipulated by realtors.

Just watch the month end and subsequent beginning of each month for the massive amount of delists and relists with new lower prices.....and in many cases....a resulting "faster" sale thereof.

FWIW Kevin, Marty Hope, is evenw orse than Mario Toneguzzi.....Hope is a pure advertising writer and REIC shill if there ever was one.....lots of what he writes doesn't either make sense or is obviously a fluff article.

Enron is not the only one who is cooking the books.

Radley77 said...

Mario Toneguzzi writes today, main page of calgaryherald.com:

"Calgary housing 'bubble' at precarious 30-year peak, report cautions - Steep rise in 6 Canadian markets 'an accident waiting to happen,' warns Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives"

http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Calgary+housing+bubble+precarious+year+peak+report+cautions/3463903/story.html#ixzz0yD7kfKTA

Radley77 said...

Mario Toneguzzi further writes in the article:

"Under the first scenario, Calgary would see an almost 20 per cent decline in prices from $403,000 today to $325,000 in three and a half year's time. If the bubble burst slowly over a period of time, the report says Calgary would experience at least a 30 per cent drop from today's prices to just over $280,000.

And under the worst-case scenario, Calgary would see a 30 per cent plunge in prices."

Carioca Canuck said...

radley......

Mario DIDN'T write that.......he was quoting a publicly released report "after" it came out.

That is and of itself quite a difference.

The MSM is simply blowing smoke and trying to be seen as objective given the major source of their revenues in the face of overwhelming criticism by the new media.

Nice try tbough.