CalculatedRisk picks up on the data mess...

CalculatedRisk, a blog that riles me up with their usual one-sided view of the market, points out the fact that the government is dealing with bad data. Granted: this post highlights that data manipulation can go both ways. As bad as Case and RealtyTrac are to the downside -- NAR, MBA and Hope Now tend to skew to the upside. Should we just average their results to get to the real data?
Which just highlights the need for real, objective data issued by professionals with no skin in the game. I raise this point because it's scary to think that our government is making policy and regulations based on skewed and biased data. What happened to their own data collecting capabilities? Expect more analysis of this topic in the future...