That Very Popular But Misleading Real Estate Chart . . .

Recently, The New London Day published the latest real estate table that compared prices of all different categories of residential real estate in the entire state for the years 2006 and 2007.  While there weren't a lot of surprises, some of the numbers were pretty misleading.

For instance, if you looked at the numbers of sales vs. the prices sold in Salem, Ct you would see that - according to this chart - prices have actually gone up by a whopping 20% . . .!  This is great news, right?  Well. . ahem. . no, that's not what has really happened.  If you don't know that last spring there was a sort of "false market" due to Pfizer relocating people here from their Michigan and California plants, you wouldn't understand that houses sold to those buyers when otherwise they might have sat there awhile.  The higher priced homes were popular, and did sell, but in a market which only had about 50 sales last year, it doesn't take much to skew the numbers. 

Now it's going to take a more reasoned approach with some sellers, to convince them that they really can't expect to sell their homes for quite as much money as they think, just because The Day published this great little chart.  Thanks, guys. . .