Home Sales are UP???

Not sure if you saw this article today on azcentral.com, “ASU Report: Home sales up in the Valley.”, if you haven’t read it take a second (it isn’t long) and think about what is “wrong” with the title. (I put wrong in quotations because it is a subjective wrong in my opinion) Home sales are NOT up in the valley. Month over month sales from March to April were up and from April of 2007 to April of 2008 they were up. But the actual numbers and trends are in the remainder of the article.

“Home resale transactions for March and April totaled 9,920 sales, compared with 10,245 sales during the same two months last year. The current year-to-date total is 16,975 sales, compared with 19,045 sales during the same period in 2007.”

Home sales are NOT up. Based on this information we are still considerably down in year over year sales and didn’t even match last March and April’s number of sales. If you look in the comments section a reader asked what the number of homes for sale on the market was compared to last year. I think that is a great question to ask.

I have nothing against the article itself. I do have an issue with the title of the article as I feel it is misleading. I am all for positive reporting and believe there are many positives out there, i.e. Lending standards are back to their former self, realtors and lenders are needing to work and discover new ways to educate people about home buying. But I don’t think it is necessarily an article worth writing if it doesn’t stay real to the current trends of the market.

I would like to read articles about mortgage loan originators and realtors that are reinventing the way they do business, and/or finding ways to educate the consumer about what it takes to be a homeowner. Give me those articles and let's change the way people view the professions and in time the housing market will begin to correct itself.