Did the housing crash do more damage than experts previously realized? Recently revised housing numbers show 3,000,000 fewer home sales than were originally reported over the past three years. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) says that they may have double-counted many home sales over this period of time, hence the revised estimates.

Anthony Sanders of the Mercatus Center says that the NAR had an incentive to be overly optimistic about home sales numbers since the better the numbers looked, the easier it was to encourage buyers to enter the market. Sanders also notes that there should have been a watchdog at the NAR to check the accuracy of the home sales reports before they were published.