On April 5th a report from Forbes was published stating real estate in Denver had increased by 27% from the previous year. As a habit, I pay attention to the statistics, so reading this came as a complete surprise to me.
Just to be sure I hadn’t woken from a Rip Van Winkle nap, I checked with my broker, Larry McGee who confirmed I hadn’t slept for a couple decades and the current stats for sales and inventory in Denver was continuing to improve.
Whew.
Well from there the rest is history. A short synopsis of the players and the process of getting to the bottom of the issue can be found on The Berkshire Group Blog.
The players in Denver weren’t satisfied to let Forbes make this statement and just leave it at that. We, each in our own way made some noise and got attention. This afternoon Forbes released an “explanation, reporting deeper into the topic.” Sadly their “explanation did not include a “retraction” of their original peace.
A retraction would have been nice, but then of course the damage has been done. Frankly, the damage exposed Forbes as passing off information without checking as just one more instance of proof, we can’t trust the media.
Francesca Levy called me yesterday on a Sunday afternoon, apologizing for the Sunday call. Guess she doesn’t realize we REALTORS® work weekends and Sunday is not a day of rest for us, but a day to work. I appreciated her call and our conversation.
I was able to explain to her first hand how her error of judgment (I’ll get to that in a minute) hurts not just the real estate industry, but more importantly the consumer. Consumers in the real estate market, whether they be buyers or sellers are sensitive to every little bit of news about real estate. When they hear something reported as was Francesca Levy’s article, they panic.
The last thing we need is panic based on FALSE information.
So what was FALSE about the article? The Answer is Zillow Stats.
Garbage in garbage out. Zillow stats aren’t the whole market. In fact their stats can be skewed if a big broker joins or pulls out from Zillow. Most people in the industry know this, that is why we don’t consider Zillow a player when it comes to accounting for numbers that have true meaning.
Zillow is cool for selling advertising to REALTORS®. Zillow is also good about letting us ad photos and facts on properties. Zillow also lets homeowners list improvements made to their homes on Zillow. Homeowners can also adjust the value of said improvements.
Zillow has no system for changing the status of listings as they come on the market, get sold, expire, get relisted, sell, etc. It’s no wonder the stats have over 10,000 units unaccounted for from the Forbes report.
Let’s just say Zillow is a BLOATED Data base. Burp!
Zillow provided Forbes.com with year-over-year homes-for-sale numbers for each of the metropolitan statistical areas examined; each metro was scored by the same measures. Since Zillow has acknowledged that these numbers may have been artificially increased, Forbes.com has decided to limit the use of year-over-year homes-for-sale statistics from the data provider. – excerpt Francesca Levy
So now two weeks later we are back on track, no Denver isn’t the 2nd worst selling market in the country, unless you are a Zillow fan. Denver is doing just fine.
Well if the truth must be told there are hundreds of brokers in Colorado right now wishing we did have 27% more inventory, because if we did we would be selling it now.
Photo Credit: Slanderous Minneapolis
About the Author
Kristal Kraft
Kristal has been helping buyers and sellers in Colorado since 1984. She enjoys sharing her knowledge of the Metro Denver Real Estate market via blogging and in person while driving around the beautiful Rocky Mountain town of Denver! For fun, Kristal enjoys shooting things with a Canon. Visit Denver Photo Blog
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Kristal Kraft
2 Comments
Great coverage, Kristal- your city is lucky to have your persistence! I look forward to seeing how Forbes and other traditional media cover data points in the future, having learned this lesson.
Thanks Lani, you are the one who deserves the credit for alerting us to the issue. The first post was good, but the second one actually woke a few people up.
I was impressed at how so many answered the call and put pressure on Forbes to investigate further.
Thanks!
kk
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