Okay this post is going to come across a little harsh, but seriously, I thought professional news outlets were supposed to be, you know, professional. However, they’re apparently letting five year old children write real estate news briefs in Federal Way:
Median price of homes hits $519,000
The median price for homes in King County last month was $519,000, a 16 percent increase over the same period a year ago.
Bzzt—wrong. The median price for houses was $419,500, an 18 percent increase over a year ago. The median price of homes (houses + condos) was *achem* “just” $377,000 (up 17%).
According to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NMLS(, a residential real-estate organization that tracks the housing market regionally, the median asking price in King County in April 2005 was $447,000.
The correct abbreviation for the Northwest Multiple Listing Service is NWMLS. You know, as in NWMLS.com? Also, the key you were looking for is ")".
In its report on last month’s market activity, King County was one of only three counties in western Washington that had fewer houses on the market than it did 12 months ago, according to NMLS.
Bzzt—wrong again. Only two counties had fewer houses on the market in April than they did last year (Cowlitz: -1%, Grant: -2%). However, King County did have slightly fewer homes on the market than last year (-1%), since condo inventory decreased almost 14%.
J. Lennox Scott, chairman of John L. Scott Real Estate, called the job centers in Bellevue and Seattle "the epicenter of sales activity." He added, "We continue to see a quick-action market and a strong surge of buyers, but there simply isn’t enough housing supply to meet the demand."
Bellevue (area 530): Pending sales down 13%—closed sales down 40%. Seattle (area 140): Pending sales down 16%, closed sales down 8%. Yeah, those definitely sound like "sales epicenters" to me.
Despite modest increases in mortgage rates, attractive financing, including multiple options for first-time buyers, is sustaining activity, NMLS reported.
Is that, even, a, sentence?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an article with so many errors, and the whole thing—title included—is only 211 words! I’m no big fan of the real estate reporting in the Seattle papers, but at least their writers passed high school English. You would think with five days to prepare (NWMLS stats were released on Friday), they could have at least gotten the headline correct.
(Federal Way Mirror, 05.10.2006)