Model Me This

As the old adage goes, "Figures Don't Lie, But Liars Never Figure ... They Use Models."

Whether it's global warming, public support for the Occupiers or the housing market, people are quick to use flawed models on which to base their recommendations/findings, particularly when it involves your money. This way, instead of being accused of lying, they are merely using the wrong model ... oopsy! ... and then say they will correct the model after screwing around with the lives of millions of people. It's a great way to avoid responsibility and criticism; after all, who ever lost their job because they used the wrong model? Hey, we flunked math!

Data on sales of previously owned U.S. homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing market than previously thought.

The National Association of Realtors said a benchmarking exercise had revealed that some properties were listed more than once, and in some instances, new home sales were also captured.

That's how you determine the reliability of a model, you benchmark it. But you design the benchmark tests and run them prior to verifying that the data model is accurate and then using it. Not here, they waited ten years (they use census data) to find out that it's crap; now they can blame Bush.

"All the sales and inventory data that have been reported since January 2007 are being downwardly revised. Sales were weaker than people thought," NAR spokesman Walter Malony told Reuters.

"We're capturing some new home data that should have been filtered out and we also discovered that some properties were being listed in more than one list."

So how bad was their model? It was off by as much as 20%. That moves the Suck Meter right into the red zone.

Early this year, the Realtors group was accused of over counting existing homes sales, with California-based real estate analysis firm CoreLogic claiming sales could have been overstated by as much as 20 percent.

[...]The depressed housing market is one of the key obstacles to strong economic growth and an oversupply of unsold homes on the market continues to stifle the sector.

Malony said the Realtors group had developed a new model that would allow frequent benchmarking instead of waiting 10 years for the population Census data to revise their figures.

And this model will come online just in time to blame the new screwed up economic projections on the new Republican administration that takes over in 2013...

Life is good when you flunk math.