Another deceiving real estate article…come on people! A little research!

May 15, 2008 | Filed Under Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends and Statistics, Boston Real Estate 

Oh boy. Why is it that local reporters continue to look at the real estate glass as half empty rather than half full? Actually, I think journalists have perfected the art of bad news, even when it doesn’t exist. Take the recent Boston Herald article about the pending sale of Dr. John Meola’s stunning Weston estate. The estate recently went under agreement after years on the market. The asking price was $10.9m, which it has been for almost the past three years. The article states that Dr. Meola hoped to get $18m at one point, but had to sell the property at a “bargain”. The author therefore seems to justify that because the super-wealthy are selling for less than they would like, the ultra-luxury market has taken a hit.

Well, first of all I highly doubt the author ever took a logic class in college. His justifications simply don’t make sense. Both in up and down markets, guess what…sellers almost always sell for less than what they hoped. Quite the epiphany moment, isn’t it? People simply tend to overvalue their own personal property. We Realtors know that if someone hopes to get $18m but ends up with far less, this by no means indicates a down market. In fact, Dr. Meola made a decent profit on this sale. Not only that, the sale of this estate will actually break the highest sales price record for a single family home in Weston! Now that’s news! Instead of writing about the most expensive home ever to sell in Weston, the author decided to deceivingly spin his article to fit his agenda. Shame on you Mr. Scott Van Voorhis.

The other point dear Scotty mentions is the drop in the number of $3m+ properties in Weston as compared to last year. While inventory sales is one indicator of market statistics, it is just that, ONE indicator. Do the 10 sales this year represent 90 percent of the current inventory or 20 percent? Has the average marketing time increased or decreased and by how much? What about average and median sales prices? Most importantly, has average price per square foot increased? It is easy to whip up an article based on only ONE of the many factors Realtors use to determine market conditions, but you will inevitably end up with a hollow and deceptive piece.

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