Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
#2I understand everything he is saying, but I do think its still important to know when home sales start to go up month over month. Though he argues this data does not yield a statistically significant indication of either direction, month over month home sales would be a factor in determining whether or not our economy was beginning to recover. Therefore it is important, arguably more important than year over year statistics, at least for the popular media.
Re: Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
#3Sorry, when a headline says "home sales fell 41% in February" I do not assume year over year, I assume month over month. This post's headline is needlessly provocative and misleading. Take it to reddit.
Re: Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
#4Sorry, when a headline says "home sales fell 41% in February" I do not assume year over year, I assume month over month. This post's headline is needlessly provocative and misleading. Take it to reddit.
October news: "Pumpkin Sales up 1000%"
November news: "Pumpkin Sales plummet"
Month on month tells us nothing (in this extreme example). Year-on-year (ie, Oct 09 v Oct 08) give us an indication of strength or otherwise in a market, without seasonable variations.
Having worked with 120+ Real estate agencies (in Australia - US cycle will differ) I can tell you that every year Jan will be 'down' from Dec, Feb will be up, September will always show an increase over August, and Dec will usually be bigger than Nov.
Reporting just those figures would look like the 'housing market' was an unpredictable roller coaster - up one month, down the next, when will it end, think of the children!?
Sure, in many instances (your business cashflow, for instance) both data points are useful. But year-on-year removes more variables and is therefore more important.
Re: Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
#5Sorry, when a headline says "home sales fell 41% in February" I do not assume year over year, I assume month over month. This post's headline is needlessly provocative and misleading. Take it to reddit.
When people quote financial figures, especially anything to do with real estate, I actually assume the opposite unless they explicitly state "month over month." It may be a bit counter-intuitive at first, but it is the convention of financial reporting to be implicit this way.
As JacobAldridge points out, it is used to account for seasonal variation; an article that looks to month over month figures would seem anomalous for this same reason. But it takes knowing some of the nuance of the industry and how it is reported to understand the what and why of the convention. I'm not a realtor, nor do I work with realtors; I just find that sector interesting to read about, enough so that some of the nuance rubs off. :-)
Re: Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
#6Sorry, when a headline says "home sales fell 41% in February" I do not assume year over year, I assume month over month. This post's headline is needlessly provocative and misleading. Take it to reddit.
October news: "Pumpkin Sales up 1000%" November news: "Pumpkin Sales plummet" Month on month tells us nothing (in this extreme example). Year-on-year (ie, Oct 09 v Oct 08) give us an indication of strength or otherwise in a market, without seasonable variations. Having worked with 120+ Real estate agencies (in Australia - US cycle will differ) I can tell you that every year Jan will be 'down' from Dec, Feb will be up…
Was this a reply to karl11's comment? [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=534333]
Re: Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
October news: "Pumpkin Sales up 1000%" November news: "Pumpkin Sales plummet" Month on month tells us nothing (in this extreme example). Year-on-year (ie, Oct 09 v Oct 08) give us an indication of strength or otherwise in a market, without seasonable variations. Having worked with 120+ Real estate agencies (in Australia - US cycle will differ) I can tell you that every year Jan will be 'down' from Dec, Feb will be up…
Was this a reply to karl11's comment? [ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=534333 ]
It could be taken as a reply to both. To karl11's comment, it could taken as a caution not to read too much in MoM sales figures. Some of (a lot of?) the variation seen could just be seasonal variation, or even insignificant noise.
Re: Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
October news: "Pumpkin Sales up 1000%" November news: "Pumpkin Sales plummet" Month on month tells us nothing (in this extreme example). Year-on-year (ie, Oct 09 v Oct 08) give us an indication of strength or otherwise in a market, without seasonable variations. Having worked with 120+ Real estate agencies (in Australia - US cycle will differ) I can tell you that every year Jan will be 'down' from Dec, Feb will be up…
Was this a reply to karl11's comment? [ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=534333 ]
Not directly, though karl11 and ellyagg both made similar points about the author's criticism of month-on-month stats.
Ellyagg also said "This post's headline is needlessly provocative and misleading." , which prompted me to respond.
Re: Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
#9Sorry, when a headline says "home sales fell 41% in February" I do not assume year over year, I assume month over month. This post's headline is needlessly provocative and misleading. Take it to reddit.
When people quote financial figures, especially anything to do with real estate, I actually assume the opposite unless they explicitly state "month over month." It may be a bit counter-intuitive at first, but it is the convention of financial reporting to be implicit this way. As JacobAldridge points out, it is used to account for seasonal variation; an article that looks to month over month figures would seem anomal…
Real estate, same store sales, car sales. Pretty much all purchasing varies year to year, not month to month.
I actually can't think of any sales figures that are relevant month to month.
Re: Home sales fell 41% year over year in February, but press didn't understand numbers, said they went up.
#10Sorry, when a headline says "home sales fell 41% in February" I do not assume year over year, I assume month over month. This post's headline is needlessly provocative and misleading. Take it to reddit.
October news: "Pumpkin Sales up 1000%" November news: "Pumpkin Sales plummet" Month on month tells us nothing (in this extreme example). Year-on-year (ie, Oct 09 v Oct 08) give us an indication of strength or otherwise in a market, without seasonable variations. Having worked with 120+ Real estate agencies (in Australia - US cycle will differ) I can tell you that every year Jan will be 'down' from Dec, Feb will be up…
I would agree with you completely. I would point out that for a media and public concerned with the current state of our economy, a year over year statistic is useless. Everyone knows that housing prices are down significantly from the same time last year. A month over month increase sparks hope. An argument about whether or not month over month numbers are valid is one I'm not educated enough to make. I am merely stating that it makes perfect sense for the media to report those stats the way they did, and it isn't because they can't read data.