A local newspaper wanted to gather information about house sales in the area. It distributed 25,000 electronic surveys to its readers asking questions about house sales in the past 6 months. Of the surveys sent out, 3.2% were returned. The results found that 92% of people did not sell their house in the past 6 months and 85% of people would expect a loss if they sold their house. The writer wants to use these results to conclude that the housing market is declining, and we are headed for a recession.
A. Explain the bias and sampling error in this study.
B. Should the writer conclude that the housing market is declining based upon this data?
C. Why or why not?