USA Today Gets It Wrong
One of the things I’ve tried to do with this blog is point out how the mainstream media often twists facts to create a story. My mantra is “Don’t believe the headlines, believe the facts.”
Today I was quoted in the USA Today on a story about real estate and stocks. Some people would be happy for the press. I am not. While my words weren’t twisted in the direct quote, my story was and I’m pretty upset about it. This is not a case of a hyperbolic headline, this is a case of an out and out lie.
The story said,
Others, like Nigel Swaby, a 36-year-old mortgage broker in Salt Lake City, are reluctant stock investors. Fearing the prices on two investment properties he owned in Salt Lake City could decline, he sold them in 2005 and invested the money in stocks.
Swaby wants to get back into real estate and has been hunting for homes to buy, but feels prices are still too inflated. “There aren’t a ton of deals out there,” he says. So his money sits in a high-yield savings account, a diversified stock mutual fund and four stocks: Procter & Gamble, Nortel Networks, Revlon and United Airlines. “I want a higher rate of return than a savings account, and stocks are it, until the real estate opportunity presents itself.”
Where’s the lie? I never told this reporter I thought pricing in SLC was going down. I didn’t sell in 2005 out of fear. I sold for profit. In fact I would have held at least one of those properties for another year, but different choices presented themselves. And what did I do with that money? First of all, I bought another house in 2005, then I invested in stocks through an IRA. In 2006, I sold that house and bought another one and then bought the stocks listed in the story. In 2007? I’m preparing to sell again and just put a property under contract this Sunday.
There are not a ton of real estate deals in SLC right now. I was fortunate enough to stumble upon one as I’ve recently had the need to look and I locked it up immediately.
Some of you may not believe my explanation here, but let me show you something. The day after the reporter called me, I made a post about the topic of his story. The reason I did this was to start some discussion on the topic and to try and find people who had completely divested themselves from real estate and reinvested in stocks. Why? Because Mr. Reporter couldn’t find any himself. I thought about it for a while and in my searches through the bubble blogs, I hadn’t seen anyone who had previously owned real estate that had completely divested themselves from it to buy stocks. I referred him to the stock folks at Silicon Investor as the best possible source.
Mr. Reporter admitted my experience didn’t really fit his story line and he probably wouldn’t be using it. My outlook wasn’t that real estate was bad, it was it is very tough to find a good investment deal in SLC right now, but if one did come along, I would drop my stocks like a hot rock. (I did sell out of PG yesterday to help fund my new real estate deal.) I guess he couldn’t find anyone else and with a deadline looming he twisted my experience a bit to fit his story and voila, his article got published.
I find it funny that in this day and age a reporter would even attempt to twist facts, especially about someone who has their own soapbox to refute the distortions. It makes me wonder how many of his other examples were accurately portrayed. The funniest of all is I also know this reporter contacted Casey Serin for his input. If Mr. Reporter wanted to generate buzz, he should have lead with, “Foreclosed on eight homes, real estate investor turns to penny stocks to get rich.”
And this readers, is why I don’t like, or trust the mainstream media.