NZ Herald - contradictory stories

If you go to the NZ Herald website, as I have done this morning, you'll see under the 'Personal Finance' section the headline:

Property market weak, prices fall 1.4pc in May
Opening paragraph: House prices fell 1.4 per cent across New Zealand in May, according to the latest REINZ Monthly Housing Price Index, released this morning.
In the three months to May, house prices rose by 0.7 per cent. Compared to 12 months earlier, the index was up by 2.3 per cent.
This latest research shows that house prices are now 5.1 per cent below their peak in November 2007

....and under the 'Markets' section

House sales running hot despite cooling weather
Opening paragraph: Auckland's housing market is humming through the winter, with prices up in most suburban areas. Data out yesterday from the Real Estate Institute and national agency chain Harcourts showed increases. The institute said the median house price was down $6000 nationally.
Wendy Alexander, Barfoot & Thompson chief executive, said the long summer meant people relaxed, stayed in their summer clothes longer, avoided shopping malls and traded their houses.
"Now we're all going brrrrrr. Everyone is burrowing in. We're having a very quiet June. But in April and May, there was tremendous demand," she said. Barfoot's wanted more listings to satisfy buyer demand.

What's going on....this is 'reporting the news' running smack up against a propaganda piece for the Real Estate Institute and Harcourts, who must supply a lot of advertising revenue to The Herald.
What a joke.

Its simple really - statistics. There are lots of numbers so lots of ways to interpret them.

So here are some "facts" based on REINZ data
Median value across NZ fell 1.7% in the past month.

But
Average prices are up by $6,032.

Average and median values for this time last year shows they are both up on last years May values.

Median value compared with Nov 07 (the "peak") is down $2,000 but average is up $3,478.

Now, if I look selectivity at certain Auckland suburbs I might choose "Mt Albert" and find
Median value is up 10.6% and average is up $43,500 on the previous month.
Or the Average/ Median both well up on the Nov 07 figures.

There is so much data you can spin what ever story you like from it.

Locally it has been reported that more lower value properties are on the market - because stressed tax reliant landlords are quitting. At the other end of the market high value properties are increasing in value because high earners are going to get more cash from their tax breaks. All anecdotal but reported in the paper so it must be true.

How does that "he who pays the piper" saying go? What is really happening is the paper is accepting copy from reliable sources and printing it because they are to lazy to do any investigative reporting.