Yesterday, Brent Baker at NewsBusters caught the Old Media emphasis on the decline in existing-home unit sales, even though the median existing-home price went up. CBS and Katie Couric apparently invoked the Great Depression in their existing-home sales commentary (I think any number of those 90 and older could say: “I knew the Depression, and Katie, this is no Depression.”).

Today we have the Commerce report (PDF) that new-home sales volume is down, AND the media crowing (unfortunately fed by the lack of Commerce Dept. detail) that the nationwide median new-home selling price is down:

The median price of a new home sold last month dropped to $237,900, down by 2.2 percent from a year ago. It was the biggest year-over-year price drop since a 6.5 percent fall in April. The median price is the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less.

But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’m forced to make the same point I made a couple of months ago in more detail — by the time you consider changes in the regional mix in home sales, you’re left with an overall new-home market where regional prices are holding steady or perhaps even slightly increasing — and definitely NOT in decline.

For now, I’ll just post the following figures, and if I think I need it, I’ll do a more detailed post tonight:

Note: The table was revised at 11:30 p.m. to reflect new home sales. Existing-sales data was used earlier as it was the only data I could find at the time, and the proportional relationship of regional selling prices is similar to that found with new homes.

The drop-dead obvious point to anyone looking at these figures for more than 30 seconds is that the regional mix of new-homes sales is weighted more heavily in the less-expensive South and Midwest regions. Of course the national median selling price will go down if prices are steady (or even slightly increasing) and you mix 5% or 6% more homes from cheaper regions, supplanting 5% or 6% from the more expensive ones. Duh.

People who are doing business reporting for a living are making the same lazy mistake month after month in reporting housing-market conditions. It’s getting very tiresome. Reasonable people have to wonder if there’s no further looking into the details simply because the topside result fits the “GOP is in the White House, the economy must be bad” template.

This misreporting has gotten so annoying that I am going to do the detailed work later tonight. It would not surprise me if the median new-home selling price in a couple of regions has actually risen.

11: 30 p.m. — Feeling under the weather. A revised version of this post is going up at NewsBusters. That will have to do for now.

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UPDATE: Quarterly data by region obtained from the Census Bureau prove the point:

Year-over-year new-home median sales prices are higher in three out of four regions (WAY higher in the West and Northeast), as are Q107’s medians compared to Q406’s. Yet the nationwide median is only up a few percentage points, primarly because of the lower-cost South’s increasing percentage of total sales volume.

Case closed.

UPDATE 2, July 28: This state-by-state picture also tells the tale — Four of the five lowest-median states are in the South, whose percentage of nationwide sales has grown.

It was reported as being 2% on Monday (first item at link).

It’s apparently lower than that:

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 5:52 PM/EST
Tech Unemployment at 1.7%
Technology and engineering unemployment is at 1.7 percent, the lowest level since 2000, and is at less than one percent for petroleum engineers (0.7 percent), architects (0.8 percent) and civil engineers (0.8 percent), according to the Tech/Engineering Staffing Growth Assessment released July 24, by the research and analysis firm Staffing Industry Analysts, located in Los Altos, Calif.

The report estimated a nine percent growth in 2007, and a 9.5 percent growth in 2008, in spending on entry, mid-level and senior temporary tech or engineering workers. There was a 12 percent average annual growth between 2004 and 2006, according to the data.

Apparently not all the jobs have gone overseas.

A Belgian bust:

BRUSSELS - A 39-year-old Moroccan who worked for years as a sworn interpreter at the court in Antwerp has been taken into custody because he has been in this country illegally all that time.

Who wants to bet that this isn’t happening here?

Related: Of course, sometimes the request to have an interpreter is a bogus tactic.

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Sniping at Sarkozy by the sore-loser French press has reached new depths:

PARIS, July 24, 2007 (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday defended his decision to involve France’s first lady in delicate negotiations on the release of six foreign medics from a Libyan jail, as he prepared to head to the north African country for cooperation talks.

….. Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, jailed for life in Libya on charges of infecting hundreds of children with the AIDS virus, were freed early Tuesday after the conditions Tripoli had set down for extradition were met.

The French president brushed off the controversy whipped up by his wife’s involvement — highly unusual for a French first lady and seen by his critics as evidence of his overly personal approach to power.

“We solved a problem. Period. There’s no point theorising about a new organisation of French diplomacy or the status of the head of state’s wife. We had to get them out, we got them out. That is what counts.”

….. Previous French first ladies have limited themselves to strictly humanitarian endeavours and played no part in diplomacy.

How many Old European press objections to a certain president’s unelected wife “endeavouring” to engineer a takeover of a country’s entire health-care system did we hear in the early 1990s?

Sarkozy’s success in turning around France will probably be directly proportional to the volume of sniping.

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New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is apparently auditioning for vice president on the Democratic ticket. But his intimidation act is wearing thin in Albany:

The media are doing their best Claude Rains act over the revelation that the office of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer orchestrated a smear campaign against State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. But far from being a unique, out of character event, the episode is a classic example of the Spitzer political method: nasty and exaggerated accusations fed by selective, politically motivated news leaks. The difference is that this time his targets could fight back.

….. The investigation had been prompted by the Governor’s office after Mr. Spitzer’s communications aide and hatchet man, Darren Dopp, saw to it that allegations of impropriety against Mr. Bruno had found their way into the hands of gullible, pliant reporters.

….. The AG cleared Mr. Bruno of any wrongdoing, but in the process uncovered Mr. Dopp’s unseemly little scheme to plant the story and then use that as a pretext to call for the investigation.

Only dirty tricks that work will get you promoted, Eliot.

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Speaking of dirty tricks: As night follows day –

Researchers Crack the iPhone

Apple’s popular multifunctional device can be exploited for data theft or snooping purposes, according to a security firm.

From the Northern UK:

8:50am Monday 23rd July 200

LITTLE Rosie Wright looked a picture of happiness as she sang for shoppers, a year after being seriously injured in the Dreamspace tragedy.

The four-year-old who, a year ago today, was thrown 50ft into the air as the Dreamspace inflatable broke free from its moorings in Riverside Park, Chester-le-Street, sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at The Galleries shopping centre, in Washington.

Rosie and her family were raising money for the Great North Air Ambulance, which airlifted her to hospital and ultimately saved her life.

Singers from the North East Talent Enterprise performed for shoppers on Saturday, but Rosie stole the show.

Dressed as a purple fairy, she sang her favourite nursery rhyme twice, before being joined by brother Jack, five, for a verse of Wheels on the Bus. But it was a very different story 12 months ago, when Rosie, then three, from Langley Park, County Durham, suffered terrible injuries after the inflatable slipped its moorings, flipped over and was dragged for about 100 yards before crashing to the ground.

She suffered a punctured lung, spinal fractures, broken thigh, ribs and ankle, multiple rib fractures, liver lacerations and a head wound.

Watching Rosie perform, her mother, Penny, said: “The children are elated to be here to support the Great North Air Ambulance. They saved my daughter’s life. Without them, she wouldn’t be here today.

“Now the holidays are here, we’re going to do as much fundraising as we can.”

Recalling the events of last summer, Mrs Wright said: “I remember we were having a fantastic time - a lovely day out - and then it went so horribly wrong. The next thing I knew I looked up and the air ambulance was there.” …..

Go here for the rest of the story.