Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Oversensationalizing

I understand the need to create a buzz when writing an article, however I feel some publishers mislead with their headlines. I wrote to Money once over a headline that did not in any way convey the message in the article. The author responded and informed me that the editors did that (I noticed a few hours it was changed). Just this morning I ran into another such scenario:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/16/real_estate/December_foreclosures_up_from_2005/index.htm?postversion=2007011706


Look at that headline: Foreclosure rates up big in December

Menacing, isn't it? My first reaction was one of concern - as a loan officer, licensed real estate agent and investor, I prefer to hear positive news. Upon reading the article, I noticed that the second sentence read "The number of homeowners entering into some stage of the foreclosure process in December was 109,652, down 9 percent from November but up 35 percent from December 2005, according to RealtyTrac"

Sure the numbers are much higher than last December, but isn't it more important to look at the trend? The trend is that foreclosures are DOWN 9% from the month before. No wonder the public is on edge and rather scared to buy!!

- Tchaka Owen

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