Forbes’ top ten worst selling markets
In comments on the AG post, Denver Realtor, Kristal Kraft said, “Somebody is smoking funny weed at Forbes.com. According to my figures Denver has 18,869 units (combined single family detached and attached) on the market. At end of February 2010. At same time last year we had 20,059. In my arithmetic book that is MINUS 5.93% not 27% more than last year.”
Kristal wasn’t alone in her sentiment that the stats listed by Forbes didn’t match data on the ground, there has been a public outcry by many Denver area practitioners.
Forbes author, Francesca Levy listed Zillow.com as her data source for examining a ten county area (Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Jefferson, Elbert, Gilpin, Clear Creek, and Park), and according to InsideRealEstateNews.com, Katie Curnette of Zillow.com believes the figure to be accurate. InsideRealEstateNews.com reports that “her story had stirred so much response, that [Levy] is ‘tempted to do a whole story’ on what is going on in the Denver market.”
Conflicting data
The Denver Business Journal notes that just 10 months ago, Forbes named Denver as the best place to buy a home in America, pointing out the conflict in data reporting. Colorado Realtor, Suzanne Alvarez reported “a 12 percent year over year surge in March for Denver. Sales skyrocketed 47 percent higher from February as buyers greeted warmer weather with sales.”
Calling for an explanation
On the heels of this conflict, current Denver mayor and Gubernatorial candidate, John Hickenlooper has stated he intends on calling for a correction and explanation of the Forbes data. Hickenlooper told InsideRealEstateNews.com, “I’ll send them a letter. I’ll call them and demand that they justify where their data came through and walk us through it, or write a correction. If they can’t justify it, it is just plain reckless and can have very serious consequences.”
We at AgentGenius think it’s fair to say that Forbes has been a trusted news source for quite a long time. We’re not going to distrust Forbes going forward, but we will verify their data sources prior to publication.
It seems that the problem here may not be with the Forbes journalist, rather with the Zillow.com data, so it will be interesting to see how this all plays out as Zillow (Zillow response)/Forbes explains such a disparity in the numbers.
Image courtesy of Flickr, CC Licensed.
