Zing.
The National Association of Realtors is a trade organization made up of real estate agents. Not all agents, just those who promise to follow NAR’s “Code of Ethics” (and those who are willing to pay the ridiculously-high annual membership fee).
Can we trust what NAR says? Maybe. They haven’t done very well making predictions, though.
How good is the National Association of Realtors at predicting home sales? We went back to look at the record. Here is what we found in the archive of its press releases:
What NAR predicted in January 2002: Dr. David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said: “Total sales will be fairly even this year, with existing-home sales projected to reach 5.23 million in 2002, down a negligible 0.5 percent.�
What actually happened in 2002: There were a total of 5.6 million existing-home sales in 2002, up 5 percent from the previous record of 5.3 million in 2001.
NAR was off by 6.4 percent and got the direction of the movement wrong.
What NAR predicted in January 2003: “We project 5.34 million existing-home sales, which would be the second-best year for each of the sale series,� said David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist.
What actually happened in 2003: There were a total of 6.1 million existing-home sales in 2003, up 9.6 percent from the previous record of 5.6 million in 2002.
NAR was off by 14.2 percent.
Read more, including how NAR did in 2004 and 2005, and what NAR predicts for 2006:
Complete article: How Good Are The Realtors’ Predictions? by Damon Darlin, The Walk-Through – The New York Times
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