Reminder: bidding war survey closes Friday at 10 a.m.

i've already taken it several times (want to make sure the final data are skewed in my favor), but thanks for the reminder

Anytime, Doug.

I expect that I will hear all about how unscientific the survey is by everyone who wants to believe that no one is buying real estate and that all property is sitting around, unwanted.

I know the drill...

Doug raises a valid concern. That this is an unscientific survey is a fact. It is well accepted that surveys like this have results that are far less reliable than professional polls, which themselves are subject to errors due to unrecognized bias, sampling errors, and random fluctuations. Professional polling is a science, and it's still far from perfect.

That doesn't mean the results will be wrong, and it doesn't mean it's not the best we can do here, it's just that there is little confidence that they will be right.

There is one big red flag we can look for, and that is the volume of responses. Between the "Bridesmaid revisited" and "Fact finding, please help" posts, there were, by my count, 21 unique posters, not counting Rona. That gives an idea how popular this subject is and this blog is. Even the most popular entries here probably get no more than 30 (40?) or so individual posters.

If there are suddenly many dozens of entries, I think that would pretty much invalidate the results. Certainly, if there are over 100 surveys, the whole thing would be laughable. It would make it probably the most popular post on this board by far, when the discussion itself was only medium popular. For it not to be fake, it would mean that huge numbers of people, who formerly couldn't be bothered to put a sentence or two together to express an opinion, would really enjoy filling out a 20 question survey.

Gus, most blog readers (everywhere) don't leave comments. I'm sure there's a statistic for it somewhere but I'd guess it's something like for every one person who comments there are ten more who are happy to just read the post and the ensuing discussion.

I read this blog every day, filled out the survey twice (my wife and I were in two multiple-bid situations in the past year), but have only commented once before, ever. In general people are more comfortable filling out anonymous surveys than commenting on the record (and thus opening themselves up to the scorn of some of the people who comment frequently) :)

Anyway, as unscientific as the survey's bound to be, over 100 responses would hardly be laughable, but rather expected.

Jon,

I respect your opinion (how is that for non-scorn?) and I think it's reasonable to expect 100 people to want to fill out a survey when only 21 commented on the blog item. But that isn't the case here, although I didn't explain it well.

Multiple bid situations were much more common during the boom years, but they certainly did not happen in anywhere near a majority of the sales. Now, by anyone's reckoning, they have to be occurring in a very slim minority of sales, probably well under 5% (1%, 2%?). There are gigantic swaths of Mass. that everyone agrees are in a housing slump. Even in areas that are holding up better, it has to be limited. For example, no one is saying that half of the homes in Cambridge are sold in a multiple bid situation.

What this means is that if 100 people fill out a survey, there must be thousands of people who would have filled out the survey if only they had been in a multiple bid situation, but they had not.

So it's not really 21 blog responders versus 100, it's probably 21 blog responders versus, let's say, 3000. That's why I think that 100 filled out surveys is beyond reasonable probability.

I am the first, and not the last, to admit these surveys prove nothing. However, the responses are consistent with what I expected in many regards. This one did illustrate the presence of the segmented part of the market and implies where it can be found.

Can you blame people for not writing on this blog? Lots of readers are going to prefer anonymous statements to inviting an ongoing conversation. Commenting requires a level of attention to the ongoing conversation. I am pleased with how many people are willing to jump in. I thank you as well as the survey responders.