The Realtors control most of the media messages (completely controlled it until 6 months ago), the data is impossible to get accurate
Also, the data is tricky to interpret. For example, the median price.
The median price reflects what buyers spent on their purchases. Prices have gone down quite a bit, but that's not reflected in the median price. That's because buyers did not spend less, the spend the same & getting more house for their money.
The real estate industry understand this. But they conveniently chose not to mention it, letting people think that prices haven't gone down.
This is one of the biggest myths in real estate. If I get a dollar every time I hear people saying: The median price is holding up, everything is OK, I would be very rich.
