Trulia Hardball: Prediction Panel Redux
Last week, we asked several industry leaders & watchers to look into their crystal balls and predict the August 2006 home sales numbers that NAR was set to release this week. Well, the NAR report was released on Monday and it’s time to recap Power Panel performance and to give out some awards. May I have the envelope please? (drumroll)
| Question 1: What will the August national existing home sales data show? | |
| NAR’s Answer: 6.33 million units, down 0.5% from July or 12.6% down year over year | |
 |
Who called it: Intero’s Bob Moles nailed this number. His prediction of a 12.5% decrease year over year was so close (only 0.1% off) that we’re wondering if his crystal ball is up for sale? Our very own Pete Flint was also on with his prediction, but since he used a range (12-14%) instead of a precise figure like Bob, he’ll have to accept the silver medal. |
| Question 2: What was the August median existing home price? | |
| NAR’s Answer: $225,000 – down 1.7% year over year | |
 |
Who called it: Most of our experts thought this number would remain flat or edge slightly upward. The trophy on this one goes to Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel. He read between the lines of previous NAR statements and was the only panelist who predicted the decline. |
| Question 3: What happened to total housing inventory in August? | |
| NAR’s Answer: Up 1.5% to 3.92 million units (7.5 month supply) | |
 |
Who called it: Bob Moles, Sherry Chris, Jonathan Miller, Maria Niles, Pete Flint and Ken Jenny all had a handle on the upward movement of inventory. The closest numerical prediction came from Flint calling for a 2-3% increase, although the most “accurate” prediction came from Ira Serkes stating that it would be “higher, lower or the same.” |
| Question 4: What are your thoughts for the housing market in Q4 2006? | |
| We’ll have to revisit the winner for this question at the end of the year! | |
Finally, the Data Hound Award goes to Bill Tancer of Hitwise. He sent us some very cool graphs that lit up our blog. We hope these graphs made us look smart by association.
Matt Carter put together a fantastic recap of our panelists’ performance on the Inman Blog here.
Think you could do better? Let us know and we’ll invite you to a future Power Panel!
`
Heather, dir. of marketing said,
September 28, 2006 @ 8:11 am
Participants Maria Niles and Jonathan Miller have great write ups on the Power Panel as well - see http://blogher.org/node/10734 and http://matrix.millersamuel.com/?p=882 respectively.