Great Housing News! (Or Is It?)

With the Dow rising and the media falling all over itself you'd think the real estate market had come back from the dead. (No pun intended this Easter week.)

And I guess what I'm really wanting to say here is you can really shape the thinking of people (good or bad) when you "forget" to include some of the facts. (That's a nice way of putting it.)

According to an article on msnbc.com:

Investors drove up U.S. home sales last month (in March), plunking down cash to grab cheap homes at risk of foreclosure.

It continues:

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday sales of previously occupied homes rose last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million. That's up 3.7 percent from 4.92 million in February.

Based on this information the housing market and outlook seems pretty good, wouldn't you agree?

Now read those same block quotes again with two statements I failed to include (purposely):

Investors drove up U.S. home sales last month (in March), plunking down cash to grab cheap homes at risk of foreclosure.

But first-time homebuyers, who are crucial to a housing recovery, stayed away.

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday sales of previously occupied homes rose last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million. That's up 3.7 percent from 4.92 million in February, but the pace is far below the 6 million homes a year that economists say represents a healthy market.

I think I made my point.

(To read the entire article: "Existing-home sales perked up in March" on msnbc.com, click here.)

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• Not Quite the Way They Said
• Numbers That Lie (Or Do They?)