Somebody's numbers are screwy

October sales of existing homes either fell 21.6 percent from a year earlier or 11 percent, depending on which data service you're using. The difference is a big deal because the lower number, reported by the Business Journal, would indicate a significant stemming of the summer-long plunge in sales, while the higher number, reported by the LAT, would indicate just a slight improvement. All that's at stake here is the future course of the Socal economy. The Business Journal gets its numbers from HomeData Corp. and the LAT gets its numbers from La Jolla-based Dataquick. For what its worth, Dataquick is by far the more recognized of the two - and usually gets all the wire service play. But the numbers are usually pretty close (I use HomeData more often because it's first out of the gate each month). Looks like somebody messed up this time around.