Palm Beach Newspaper Defends Its Coverage of Florida Mortgage Loans, Housing Market

The housing market has seen better days. Demand for Florida home mortgage loans has waned. These are indisputable facts, yet more and more local residents are blaming the media for such real estate troubles.

An article in The Palm Beach Post said Roger Theriault is one of the latest readers “to express my concern about The Post’s real estate reporting.” He prefaced his comments “by saying that I am a licensed salesperson and Realtor. My concern is that The Post is not clearly reporting on this important industry, and, as a result, readers of The Post are getting a tremendously different picture of the real estate market than they should have, were the facts reported clearly and fairly.”

Despite valid Florida home mortgage concerns from citizens, Mr. Theriault cited the “recent reporting on ‘the end of the boom,’ as it were, including past coverage of the monthly press releases and statistics from the Florida Association of Realtors. In brief, I feel the stories are sensationalistic, potentially exaggerating the statistics.” He said they “poorly describe the data at hand” and are “technically inaccurate” and “unbalanced.”

Newspaper response to Florida mortgage loan blame

Members of the newsroom certainly don’t agree they’re contributing to the bubble; merely doing their jobs reporting the facts.

“We had one of the hottest markets in the nation,” said Managing Editor Bill Rose. “It’s cooled off significantly; lots of readers tell us it’s now taking longer to sell their houses, yet prices on many homes generally remain high. That’s not sensationalism; that’s news. We’ve also provided context in the form of statistics, interviews with Realtors and opinions of various experts - the same types of sources we quoted when the market was red hot.

Rose almost laughed off the notion that the paper is sabotaging the housing market in order to make money. He made the point that many of the Post’s reporters are homeowners - why would they wish to see the industry suffer? Plenty of writers and editors may be looking into a Florida mortgage loan soon.

“We didn’t begin writing about home sales cooling off until statistics showed they were cooling off. That’s not creating news. That’s reporting news. The nature of our business and the heart of our credibility is that we cover news as it happens with as much clarity and balance as we can,” Rose added.

The slow down in sale numbers isn’t reserved for Palm Beach. All over the state, hopeful buyers are having trouble finding affordable housing. Programs are being set up to help with this issue. It’s simply the job of the media to report on that.

Regardless of which side you take on this issue, the news (however you interpret it) isn’t all bad. Some areas of the state are focusing on Florida home mortgage financing for lower-income families. They recognize the need to help those that cannot afford in the current market.