John Rebchook is a former Rocky Mountain News reporter with more than 30 years of experience in writing and communications... What is up with Forbes.com?
After heavy criticism from Denver-area Realtors, economists, and even Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, Forbes.com wrote another article, backing off the first. The first article ranked Denver the second worst in the nation as a housing sales market, based on data it said it got from Zillow.com. Since that article, Zillow.com has said it did not supply that information to Forbes.com, and would have advised it not to use that information, as it is constantly changing, as Zillow adds real estate partners. Forbes responded by explaining that it a second article.
Forbes.com, an online version of the Forbes magazine, has since removed both articles.
Kraft not letting Forbes off the hook
Here is what Denver Realtor Kristal Kraft wrote about Forbe’s decision on Friday:
“If you have been reading my last several posts, you will be aware of how Forbes placed Denver as #2 of the Worst Housing Markets coming as a severe shock to real estate professionals who watch the market, and seasoned veteran of the Denver real estate reporting world, John Rebchook, Mayor John Hickenlooper and scores of others,” Kraft wrote on her blog. “ Today Forbes deleted not one, but two online posts relating to the false and inflated stats found by writer Francesca Levy. The report came as a surprise to many experienced people who watch and know the Denver real estate market. Many who asked or in the case of the Mayor DEMANDED a retraction, I was told personally by Francesca Levy that Forbes doesn’t do retractions, just more reporting. Well Forbes second article failed to take personal account for making the mistake to begin with. Instead they pointed the blame at Zillow, who had Francesca Levy bothered to ask would have informed (suggested) she not use the stats they presented for her specific article.”
Zillow’s take
Here is what Spencer Rascoff, COO of Seattle-based Zillow had to say, when he stepped into the Forbes-fray.
“Earlier this month, Forbes.com published a story naming the “America’s Worst-Selling Housing Markets,” Rascoff wrote. “The reporter used data from the National Association of Realtors, Moody’s Economy.com and Zillow to create an index that ranked metropolitan statistical areas. Much to the confusion of Denver real estate professionals, the Denver region was number two on the Forbes.com list. One of the statistics Forbes.com cited in the article was a number from Zillow which Forbes.com referred to as “inventory.” There has been lots of confusion about this story and the data in it. Forbes published a follow-up last week, but I’d like to clarify a few points.
· Zillow did not name Denver one of the worst-selling housing markets. Forbes.com used one statistic from Zillow, along with statistics from NAR and Moody’s, to create their own index. Zillow was not consulted on the construction of this index.
· The number Forbes.com took off of our website was labeled on Zillow as “Homes for Sale on Zillow” in the month of January, and that’s what it captured. It was never labeled as a total inventory number, and we never presented it to them as such, in writing or verbally.
“The methodology behind the statistic which the Forbes.com reporter pulled from Zillow.com showed the cumulative number of homes listed for sale on Zillow during the month, not a snapshot at a single point in time. This explains why the number wouldn’t match MLS inventory statistics, and further explains why the reporter shouldn’t have used it in the way that she did. (And had the reporter contacted us before writing the article, we would have recommended that she not use it in the way that she did.)
“In fact, the median daily number of listings in March posted on Zillow was 31,947 – extremely close to the 31,740 listings reported by a Denver economist using Metrolist MLS data,” Rascoff continued. (Rebchook note: Actually, he is referring to economist Patty Silverstein. She used Zillow data, not MLS data. For that article, please visit a previous blog.)
Rascoff’s response went on to say: “But the cumulative number of listings on Zillow during March (which is what the “Homes for Sale on Zillow” metric represents) was 43,157 listings. In other words, new listings came onto the market and some homes came off the market. The point is that the discrepancy was caused by the Forbes.com reporter not reading the fine print on the Zillow website and not calling her Zillow PR contact; it was not due to inaccuracies in Zillow data.
“Although our January listings number was representative of the number of homes on the market at the time, we have added partners in the past year, which have brought us new sources of listings. We routinely warn media against using year-over-year numbers when referring to homes on Zillow, since changes might be more reflective of new partnerships than market conditions.
“Contrary to some blog reports, Forbes.com did not say they would stop using Zillow data. They said they would limit the use of year-over-year comparisons when using the metric “Homes for Sale on Zillow.” (We support this decision, and as I said above we would have discouraged the use of this statistic anyway since the reporter was trying to show total overall inventory.) On the contrary, Forbes and Forbes.com (and dozens of other media sources) continue to use Zillow data, and in fact I’m personally one of five proud members of the Forbes Expert Real Estate Panel which conducts monthly online discussions of real estate issues (and frequently uses Zillow data).”
He concluded by saying: ”We stand behind the accuracy of our data, but like all statistics, they can be misleading if not properly understood or explained. It’s regrettable that this situation occurred.”
Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.
John, I don't know who's running Forbes. I do know they only took down Page 1 of the April 19th article. Page 2 is live and indexed by Google, just another oops. http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/19/inventory-denver…
P.S. Thanks for spelling my name right when they didn't. Now that's good reporting!
Kris, That’s interesting. Maybe some techie can explain why the second half of the second story can be found online. Of course, even I know once something has appeared on the Internet, it never truly disappears. I went on Forbes.com and it is clear that they have officially removed the links to both articles. John.
John, I'm a techie. Each page had a unique URL. They deleted only Page 1, not reading/thinking about Page 2.
At the present time if you do a Google search for "Denver Mayor Forbes" you will see page 2 of the article has not been taken down. You have great position for those terms as #3!
Now it will be fun to watch how long it takes them to discover the error. Most savvy folks these days monitor their reputation by using Google alerts and other services like Trackur to be notified at mentions of their Name or in Forbes case their Brand.
Let's see how Internet savvy Forbes actually is.
BTW my friend @comomma (Laura Scheer) first discovered this. I must give credit where credit is due.
Thanks, Laura and Kristal. I have so much to learn. Thanks for educating me.
John
HI John – I found it by accident. I was searching this morning to see if the Mayor had been quoted about the Forbes article being taken down. Thus the "Denver Mayor Forbes" search. Imagine my surprise when I saw that they forgot to take down page 2 – the Mayor was mentioned in page 2, so there it is right at the top. Kristal is right, they had the article set up as a 2 pager, so each page has its own unique url, like a new file name. So while they deleted page 1, they forgot about page 2. And of course Google indexes all pages it wants to, not just page 1. Wala!
Good job, Laura.