BY THE NUMBERS

BY THE NUMBERS

Home sales numbers for the state and the nation always come out at the tail end of every month.
The National Association of Realtors releases its release and so does the California Association of Realtors.
And different reporters have a different take.
Two dispatches I saw on the wire reported that sales nationally fell 1.3 percent in June.
Only one included the year-over-year decline of 8.9 percent.
That's not surprising, since the NAR put the monthly decline at the front their releases second paragraph and the annual number at the back.
Here's the headline. “Existing-Home Sales Flattening, Prices Cooling.�
CAR, on the other hand, cast its weight with the year-ago. Here's their headline. “CAR reports median price of a home in California at $575,800 in June, up 6.2 percent from a year ago; sales decreased 26.3 percent.
Which one offers a better sense of the market.
Robert Kleinhenz, the deputy chief economist at the state association, said that the monthly market moves get a lot of national attention.
That might not be a good thing.
Real estate markets are lethargic beasts.
“The housing market is being viewed and treated a lot more like financial markets which turn on a dime. This moves at a somewhat slower pace,� he said.
Market analyst Nima Nattagh agrees.
“Month-to-month trends tend to be influenced by seasonal factors where on a yearly basis there is a much more long term view of the changes in the markets.�
That's why publicly traded companies earnings reports are compared to the year-ago period, a former editor once told me.
The bottom line: To get a sense of where this market is headed, look back a while in time.