Revised home sale counts from the National Association of Realtors show that existing home sales during the housing bust were 14.3% worse than originally reported.
Among the findings:
• In 2007, there were 5.04 million existing home sales, 11% less than the 5.65 originally reported.
• Sales in 2008 and 2009 were 16% less than reported, while sales in 2010 were 15% lower.
Home sale numbers were estimated based on the number of transactions reported by local Realtors, a method that worked well into the mid-2000s until Realtors began to get involved in more deals and many of the MLSs expanded into new territories, leading to double-counting of some sales, CNN Money reports.
