I’m giving myself the luxury of going on a RANT today. One that I have avoided for years, but one I can’t hold in anymore.
WARNING! If you write, create or print a market report of some sort, you might find this offensive and I’m sorry, but here goes…
Everyone’s a critic.
Fine.
But there seem to be more “market experts” with a voice than ever before. And they are broken down into these 3 main categories:
ATMRE’s “Appraisers Turned Market Report Experts”: These are people who have made careers out of creating reports that are dated, not relative to current market conditions and really carry no validity in providing insight into current market conditions. They have also probably never sold an apartment.
BTME’s “Brokers Turned Market Experts”: These are brokers who create reports in various formats. They are mostly for marketing purposes, so they can say they have a “report” and are experts. (CORE’s Real Time Report will get some criticism for this, and if you email me, I will valiantly defend it). Oh, and if you have a better report, I’d love to start using it, so my team who compiles this data every month can start doing something else for our clients, thank you very much.
NRWHNIAOM’s “National Researchers Who Have No Idea About Our Market”: These are people who have probably never visited New York, let alone know what a Co-Op is. They still think that The Bowery is a slum and West Chelsea is a wasteland.
I was going to include specific examples of these people and reports, but I decided against it (for obvious reasons).
The latest absurdity is called the “broker confidence index”. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
Buyer Beware! There is NO market report for New York City that exists right now that will give you answers to all your questions. In fact, you will probably be more confused after reading these reports than if you had never laid eyes upon them.
If you want to know what the market is doing, ask your broker to take you on a property tour. They know what’s going on. They are on the front lines, and this is really the only way to get educated. There are no short cuts!