They Cooked the Books? (On Losing Trust)

They cooked the books(?). And not only that, they were caught(?).

The "they" I'm referring to is the National Association of Realtors. In a statement to Reuters, NAR's spokesman Walter Malony comes out and says it...

"All the sales and inventory data that have been reported since January 2007 are being downwardly revised. Sales were weaker than people thought."

Huh? As challenging as the real estate market's been, it's even worse? Add to that, we wouldn't have even known about it except a real estate analysis firm called the NAR out(?).

The Reuters article goes on...

Early this year, the Realtors group was accused of overcounting existing homes sales, with California-based real estate analysis firm CoreLogic claiming sales could have been overstated by as much as 20 percent.

At the time, the NAR said it was consulting with a range of experts to determine whether there was a drift in its monthly existing home sales data and that any drift would be "relatively minor."

A "relatively minor" drift of 20 percent? And for 5 whole years?! (reference first block quote again) Are you kidding me?!

Of course, there are many questions that come to mind when something like this happens including: "What else are they fudging on?" and "How can we trust anything they say in the future?" and "Were they doing this on purpose?" Each are legitimate questions.

Bottom line: When you lose trust, it's pretty hard to ever get it back.

(To read the entire Reuters article: "Realtors: We Overcounted Home Sales for Five Years, click here.)

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