Seattle Bubble Forum Archive

Okay, the Seattle Times and Seattle PI are losing all credibility for reporting objectively about real estate prices.

Aren't journalists supposed to ask tough questions? To be skeptical?

How is it then that there hasn't been a single story (that I've seen) to suggest the possibility (even likelihood) that local real estate prices will decline 20% or more from their peak?

Prices have been declining since July, yet not a single college-educated journalist has asked "how low will prices go?" in print.

On Sunday I saw a paper fanned out at my gym and saw what I now believe to be the reason: the Real Estate Section. Hmm, paid for by advertising... from mortgage lenders and realtors and home sellers.

Our local "journalists" can't report the truth about the *local* real estate bubble because of their sponsors and the bottom line. They are doing readers a disservice and in fact are subjecting them to unnecessary risk by not reporting.

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I can't find any other plausible explanation. Can you?

It's hard to see them posting "doom and gloom" when housing listings are a major revenue source. I don't know what level the "no bad news" philosophy is coming from, but I don't really believe the newspapers are capable of being completely revealing in their reporting.

Also, while papers (and news in general) certainly has biases, I don't know that it's true that they never catch up to current trends. Perhaps the local Seattle papers have been overly optimistic, but many of the larger outlets are reporting rather realistically that housing is falling. I suspect (though have not checked) that local papers in really bad areas (Florida, SouCal, Vegas, et all) are presenting a more realistic viewpoint than their Seattle counterparts as well.

What I think is really happening is that all news reports are actually historical reports. They report on what happened, not what's happening. For car chases, they can seem up-to-date because the event has a definitive start and end. Financial markets are less definitive, so it's harder to know what the appropriate amount of optimism/pessimism is until after things play out, which can take years.

The thing is, markets closely follow the general opinions of the people involved in the market, which is essentially everyone. I think if you look at the papers, they have fairly well mirrored general concensus, and I wouldn't expect much more out of them than that.