Realtors' MLS Hides the Rancid Truth

Surprise!! MLS data are not accurate.

OK. So if real estate market conditions are local, and millions of Americans study local market housing conditions and even shop for homes on the internet at sites like Realtor.com and other MLS-linked database services, then why is the information therein so incomplete and inaccurate?

If "local" is the critical factor here for buyers and sellers alike, then why not make a concerted effort to clean up the slop?

ArrrghhhhH! When will we all stop asking such ridiculous questions!!!

Realtors declare "trusted advisor" status in their industry by fiat. Our first mistake would be to accept this preposterous claim and then understand it to have been supposedly earned sometime ago. They have NO claims to such authority. The colossal housing crash of California and the nation has thoroughly stripped realtors of any such authority.

This MLS problem really needs to be corrected. Not just because it's feeding consumers inaccurate and incomplete data. That can happen with any database. It should be corrected because of the massively incorrect inferences that can be, and are, regularly drawn from such "local" real estate market numbers.

See the excellent write up here by Dr. Housing Bubble Blog on the same subject.

Let's get it together people. First do the home work. Then you can maybe play princess in front of the mirror all you want. Declare yourselves empresses of the kingdom of ashes for all I care.

Mr. Lawrence Yun of the N.A.R. Weighs In Again

Mr. David Lereah was the Chief Economist of the National Association of Realtors (N.A.R.). Now that Lereah is pulling the ripcord and escaping the N.A.R. before the house literally burns down, Mr. Lawrence Yun, the Senior Economist of the N.A.R. steps up in his new flame-retardant suit.

He's not just a "senior economist". He's the freaking Managing Director of Quantititative Research for the National Association of Realtors.

OK, but who is this Mr. Yun really?

Does he have some fresh or even forthright comments about the state of the American housing market?

Will he come clean about the N.A.R. being a cartel driven by realtor sales commission earnings and sales strategies, not consumer education, market principles, business ethics, and operating as "trusted advisor"?

The answer is a resounding no.

Mr. Yun is a Lereah lacky. In February of 2007, he echoed Lereah's comments about the true state of the American market. If one were to follow this N.A.R. quantitative propeller head around all day, he'd have real estate consumers believing that the market bottom was hit 4 months ago and that everyone should get ready for a recovery later in the year:

"Sales will recover gradually over the second half of the year and prices will begin to edge up again"

Mr. Yun was wrong in February. He and the N.A.R. are wrong again now.

The U.S. economy is slowing down significantly, the U.S. dollar is approaching an all-time low in value versus the Euro and the British Pound, U.S. inflation remains completely unchecked by the United States Federal Reserve Commission, fuel prices in the United States are approaching unchartered territory at almost $4.00 per gallon in California, a jaw-dropping number of mortgage lenders have been completely or partially destroyed, surviving lenders have restricted their lending standards substantially, HELOC loans are down by 20% year to date and subprime and Alt-A loan foreclosures are rocking the entire industry - and we haven't even explored the probabilities that prime loans may also weigh in badly before the year is out.

To Mr. Yun and members of the National Association of Realtors: It's time for someone from your decrepit organization to step up to the plate and tell it like it is.