The reality of statistics is that you can use them to tell any story you like. This reality impacts real estate consumers every day.
You can take any set of figures and use them to tell a positive story or a negative one, depending on your viewpoint. Media, usually, will choose the negative option – and the people who feed press releases to journalists know that sensational negatives get more publicity than balanced analysis of property markets.
So when CoreLogic ran the numbers on price movements in the various locations across Australia in 2022, they found that roughly half had recorded price increases and half had price declines.
Given that the boffins at CoreLogic are the biggest publicity tarts in the industry, there are no prizes for guessing where they placed their emphasis.
All the headlines around Australia screamed that half of locations had dropped – or, to use media parlance, plummeted, nosedived, collapsed or fallen off a cliff.
The headlines could, with equal validity, have shouted that half the nation’s locations actually recorded higher prices– which, given the tone of media coverage lately, is a remarkable outcome.
