Since March, our market-- known to locals as the Treasure Valley-- has been slowly making gains over what appears to have been a bottom in February. I'm hoping February, 2008, was the bottom but, since a number of factors have yet to shake themselves out, we'll have to wait and see what happens in the coming year.
I could cut the local media some slack over not reporting gradual gains; however, Septemeber with its 20% increase over August is both notable and newsworthy. Additionally, our inventory has decreased for three consecutive months, with September, 2008 showing a decreased inventory over September, 2007!! Tremendously welcome news, which I'm sure the typical consumer-- let alone the average seller!-- would love to hear about. From the media: nada!
Approaching mid October, the news media has had ample time to compile the same stats I have-- available to anyone with access to the local MLS-- and run at least one story on this great situation. But we're talkin' Zippo stories as the news vultures reporters continue their relentless trash digging quest for bad news about the economy... well, everything!! Yeah, we all know negative news sells. My response:
1. The negativity has been a bit over the top lately. (Likely because there's an election on the horizon.)
2. If negative news sells so well, why aren't newspapers reporting their own negative numbers, as their circulation numbers continue to dwindle and some of them face the choice of either being bought out by a competitor or going belly up? Hmmmm.... Seems the media is making its own negative news on several levels....
So that's my market report, with a bit of my two-cents thrown in about the news media.
Make your weekend a memorable one!
Comments(1)