IS SALES VOLUME DOWN 1.3% OR 19.3%? OR BOTH!!

Every day I hear someone spouting off Real Estate Market statistics to me. They're usually dire and full of scary projections. When I ask more specific questions about either the source of those numbers, or exactly what those numbers pertain to, I usually get an "I don't know". All they know was that it was "bad" and "scary". 

Let's take an example ...