Even the USA Today does it. "Existing Home Sales Edge Up .04%."

How could that even be within a margin of error?

Guess what folks, my sales in December were higher than November. Always will be. No matter what. I guarantee it.

The point being, comparing consecutive months is meaningless, but the media continues to do so. It is very misleading to the casual reader who only sees the headline.

The line just below the headline?

"DOWN 20% FROM A YEAR AGO."

I repeat.

"DOWN 20% FROM A YEAR AGO."

Strangely, reading some of the national housing blogs, there are still a number of nitwits who say something along the lines of: "Well, prices couldn't go up forever. This just makes things more affordable."

Which means the optimists have their bases covered. "Prices go up. Quick, buy, before you can't afford it!"

Prices go down. "Quick, buy, houses are affordable. Buy before they go up again!"

But I think, as Paul-doh point out on Bendbubble2, prices are a bit of a red herring. It's whether houses are selling at all, at any price.


This last week at the store sales were pretty crappy. Which surprised me, because up until Christmas day, we were actually ahead of last year. But just a horrible week after. Because we had done so well the week before Christmas, we are going to come in at almost exactly my original estimate, so I'm not too upset.


The cold I had for a week suddenly turned into the Ebola Virus, so I've been at home for several days trying to get over it.