Posted by Leonard Steinberg on April 17th, 2014
In this morning’s POST an article addresses the concerns of activist Reverend Dennis Dillon that Mayor De Blasio’s administration is not as diverse as the City and doesn’t reflect its composition: African-Americans account for about 23% of New York City’s population, and make up 26% of the administration’s appointees to date, yet Reverend Dillon admitted to The Post that his group’s estimate that New York City was 34% African-American (a 30% difference!)was based on its own polling, not on official Census data. Is this another perfect example of selective mathematics, something we see daily in New York Real Estate? Or is this blatant distortion of the truth? How is it possible that when people distort the truth so drastically they seem to get away with it? Of all things in the world, Mayor De Blasio cannot be accused of not being diverse!
In real estate I am confronted daily with grossly inaccurate data. It is gross. It’s worse because much of the data has been PURPOSEFULLY distorted because of an agenda. I am told of figures daily that are simply inaccurate. Often times they are assumptions or hearsay. Most times they are just distortions and manipulative. I see and hear much (in writing) about achievements and sales figures that are completely false, yet those who should be addressing this illegal activity remain silent. If you don’t believe me, take a look at five different quarterly market real estate reports: they all claim their data to be based on the same criteria…..closed, recorded sales…..yet each report has very different figures. Is this accidental? Is this purposeful? Is it inefficiency? Or is it the combination of all three, thus making it corrupt?
Certain things in life are hard fact, whether we like those facts or not. Manipulating the truth these days is easy: make a statement in the press, the web, Twitter, TV or Instagram and repeat the message often enough, and it becomes ‘fact’. Does no-one seems to have the time or resources to fact-check anymore? It seems no-one speaks out when people lie……there I said it…..it’s called LYING, just in case anyone forgot the meaning of that word or has conveniently re-defined the concept. Its time for the real estate industry to bring data to the table that is driven by fact.