An irate – and unpublished – Opinion Line caller took me to the woodshed yesterday for what she perceives as an erroneous suggestion that the median home price in Wichita is rising.
Her logic – such as it was – was the value of her low-end home is falling, so the conclusion couldn’t be correct. And I should do more, she claims, than just parrot local realtors who aren’t being honest about the state of the Wichita housing market.
A couple of points: First, the conclusion is correct, and the irate caller is partially correct, as well. Upper-end homes are selling briskly in Wichita, and when a bunch of $500,000 homes sell, the median price rises. And, it offsets the lack of traffic in entry-level homes where the market has been literally frozen by the lack of credit for first-time homebuyers.
It’s the latest in the sagging national economy’s strong impact on covering business in Wichita: Some local realtors would love me more if I actually did parrot them because the real numbers – which we publish religiously as soon as they’re released – erode buyer confidence. I have no doubt that they’re correct about that. Yet others are brutally honest about what they see in a market that is clearly declining, spin notwithstanding.
Same with retailers: Some are candid about their questionable futures and a potentially bleak Christmas season. Others – mostly on the East side of Wichita – complain that business is just great and giving their struggling peers a voice hurts their business.
I’m reminded of a lunch many moons ago with a local construction executive, who peered across the table and said flatly, “Your job is to advocate for Wichita.”
So let’s talk about that. What do you expect from your newspaper?