House Price Forecasts Diverge Widely on CNNMoney.com

Two different authors at CNN Money used similar data sets on home prices, yet came up with very different answers. I noticed that the predictions for Seattle were very different when reading these articles.

Article	Hot home markets to cool down... how will your home fare? By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer May 1, 2006	Home forecast: Where the growth is... and isn't By Tara Kalwarski, MONEY Magazine May 17, 2006
Metro	Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA
Median Price	$360,000	308,000
Past Change	16.43% (49.30%/3 years)	16.30% (2004:Q3-2005:Q3)
Forecast gain	10.50% (2006)	1.90% (June 2006–June 2007)
Sources cited	Fiserv Lending Solutions	Fiserv Lending Solutions and Moody's Economy.com

Note that the labels on the two authors' data are not identical, and Kalwarski adds Moody's to sources cited.

I Googled for the author's names, and found that readers of Seattle Bubble had already found the discrepancy, one day after publication of the second article. No errata, discussion, or explanation have been added to the CNNMoney articles as of this writing. Neither Ms. Kalwarski nor Mr. Christie appear to have author bios, mailto links, or blogs, so I could not respond to them directly. I've written to the Managing Editor. I'll make sure that any responses get posted here.