Consumers Listening To Themselves Over Media

(The 2006 real estate industry has been flooded with contrasting reports and forecasts of the prospective market.)

One day a person may read about how sunny skies will be overhead the real estate industry, while that same person puts down the newspaper and reads a tumultuous national forecast about how the worst of the market downturn has yet to pass.

With such contrasting news about the delicate nature of the real estate industry, media advocates hope their words are taken into light and not 100 percent seriously. If a person listened to every media report on the real estate industry, he or she would be both buying and selling everyday without knowing where the end would be.

The Realty Times article, “Savvy Consumers Don't Shoot Messenger,” posted November 28, 2006 and written by Broderick Perkins, explains how industry consumers may be wiser than some give them credit for.

“It could be confusing times for housing consumers trying to sort out what's really happening in their local housing market when forecasts published by the media are flying with so much turbulence.”

Luckily, however, most consumers are savvier than they are given credit for. The most recent charge by real estate industry conglomerates has been that consumers have been swayed away from buying or acting in the market because of negative “gloomy” reports.

According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), consumers are paying less attention to persuasive media reports and more attention to their own needs concerning housing, personal goals and market conditions.

“From Oct. 26 to 29, the NAHB, surveyed 2,000 households, and asked them to rate the importance of several factors potentially affecting their decisions to buy or not to buy a home.”

The most obvious and expected factor was reported by 80 percent of the participants as being housing prices. But that was followed by 71 percent of respondents agreeing in the importance for a home to increase in value and 70 percent putting an emphasis on the actual prospect of selling their home at a fair price.

After mortgage interest rates (69 percent) and personal life changes (60 percent), only 28 percent of the surveyed households said that real estate market news stories would affect their decision on whether to buy a home. In fact, there were eight items listed on the survey and news media ranked eighth.

“In addition to consumers being more savvy than often given credit, the news media also may not be doing its job.” After all, a news or media reporter’s job is to disseminate fair and accurate information to a mass public.

“The survey found 61 percent said the media is only ‘sometimes trustworthy’ as a source of information on the housing market, while only 5 percent said that it is ‘always trustworthy,’ 20 percent said it is ‘seldom trustworthy’ and 8 percent said the media is ‘never trustworthy.’”

Perhaps this is in light of the recent trade-off in contrasting reports in the media.

“‘The media provides an important service by giving consumers the big picture of what is occurring in the housing marketplace, even the big picture in their local markets,’ said NAHB President David Pressly, a home builder from Statesville, N.C. ‘But despite that, local reporting can't convey the information that consumers consider the most when they are looking for a new home,’ he added.”

We rely on much information from the newspaper and news broadcasts but when it comes to making a real estate decision that will impact our lives forever, listening to our own needs and goals may be the best advice for anyone.

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