The National Association of Realtors will revise down its figures for existing-home sales for this year and preceding four years, The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday.

The organization, which gets data from local real estate listing services, has drawn some criticism from outsiders who said courthouse records for sales didn't support the realtors' numbers.

There was no information on the organization's website Monday night about the change, but the Journal reported, "The real estate group said in a statement that though sales and unsold inventory numbers will be revised downward, there will be little change to monthly percentage changes in sales volumes."

Part of the problem for the realtors, the newspaper said, was that the Census Bureau did not ask about home sales in 2010, and a usual decennial revision of the organization's numbers using Census data has been delayed.