What’s Wrong With This Picture?
November 20th, 2009 categories: For Sellers, Rants & Riffs
The Honolulu Advertiser headline reads, “Foreclosure in Isles 10th worst in nation” and its first paragraph articulates the following.
“Slightly fewer home foreclosure cases in Hawai’i were begun in the third quarter compared with the second quarter, but the number of pending foreclosures and the number of delinquent mortgages that aren’t yet in foreclosure both rose.” CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE HONOLULU ADVERTISER ARTICLE
As a Honolulu real estate broker, I see both good and bad news in the numbers. My beef with the advertiser is that they could have chose to take the optimistic view of the data and start with a headline that reads “Fewer Hawaii Foreclosure Cases Begun” or how about “Hawaii Foreclosures slowing”.
I find a bit of irony in the fact that the articles last paragraph reads, “Among all states, Hawai’i’s mortgage delinquency rate was 43rd worst. Nationally, the delinquency rate was 9.64 percent.” Hawaii’s mortgage loan delinquency rate was 6.65% of the over number of loans. Again, why didn’t The Advertiser lead with a different headline? I wonder if the newspaper’s negativity is one of the factors in its recent 13% decline in subscribers. Based on the newspaper’s choice to accentuate the negative, maybe we should all hope for a further decline in their readership.
You may think that I am being overly critical, but community attitudes can drive a market and such a negative headline could lead a person skimming the article to believe that the home and condo market is worse than it real is. Think about it.
If you would like to discuss your real estate needs, feel free to call me at 808-737-2093 or toll free at 877-737-2093. You can email me at keahi@lava.net.
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There is obviously alot more to read about this. I think you made some good points in Features also. Keep working ,excellent writting!