The Woeful State of Market Statistics on (Some) Broker Websites
At RMU, we create charts and statistics on local real estate markets. Where it’s available, we use data from the Multiple Listing Services (MLS) that the Realtors use. The vast majority of transactions go through the MLS systems.
Behind the scenes, the process of turning raw MLS listing data into meaningful charts and statistics is a bit complex. Unfortunately, a lot of people get important parts of it wrong … sometimes very wrong.
Several times a year, we check our numbers against those from other sources. And we ask clients who are members of the MLSs involved to run searches through the MLS to verify the numbers.
The results of a recent mini-survey are below. The numbers are real. The names are not. What it shows is that on different broker websites (with names you would recognize), unit sales for single family homes in the same town in the same time period … are radically different.
| Single Family Unit Sales in Q3, 2010 as shown in December, 2010 |
|
|
|
———— Broker Websites ———— |
| Town |
Best MLS for the Town |
MLS Count |
Big National Realty |
Upscale Realty |
Independent Realty |
| Mayberry |
County MLS |
166 |
476 |
165 |
166 |
| Springfield |
State MLS |
51 |
198 |
2* |
51 |
| South Fork |
State MLS |
17 |
46 |
2* |
17 |
| Wisteria |
Wisteria MLS |
141 |
375 |
34 |
141 |
* Upscale seems to have stopped updating State MLS after July
What’s going on with ‘Big National Realty’? Their numbers are roughly 3 times what the MLS reports. Could it be that an under-paid, under-qualified clerk somewhere thought that to get the quarterly number you had to multiply the monthly totals by 3? And no manager or QC person looked at the results? Don’t know … just speculation.
And then ‘Upscale Realty’ … they pretty much nailed County MLS. Good job. But they haven’t updated State MLS since July.
But then what’s going on with the town of Wisteria. Wisteria has their own MLS. It has all the listings. Some of the Wisteria listings wind up on County MLS … roughly 20%. So it’s a pretty good bet that ‘Upscale’ is taking Wisteria listings from County MLS when they should be taking them from Wisteria MLS.
Independent Realty gets it right. OK, RMU does their numbers. Part of our process is to have data from a sample of towns checked back against the MLS. If anything doesn’t match, we find and fix the problem.
I don’t think it does anyone in the business any good when a buyer or seller can go to three prominent broker websites and see that sales in a town last quarter were either 375, 34, or 141.
The most sensible place to regulate this is with the MLSs. In each geography, the vast bulk of web traffic goes to a few brokers. In less than an hour, somebody at the MLS could look up the sales in a few towns and check the stats on the dominant broker sites. Do this, say, at the end of each quarter since a lot of these reports are quarterly. If there’s an issue, have the offending party take down those pages until it’s fixed.
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The Woeful State of Market Statistics on (Some) Broker Websites
January 28, 2011 Leave a Comment
At RMU, we create charts and statistics on local real estate markets. Where it’s available, we use data from the Multiple Listing Services (MLS) that the Realtors use. The vast majority of transactions go through the MLS systems.
Behind the scenes, the process of turning raw MLS listing data into meaningful charts and statistics is a bit complex. Unfortunately, a lot of people get important parts of it wrong … sometimes very wrong.
Several times a year, we check our numbers against those from other sources. And we ask clients who are members of the MLSs involved to run searches through the MLS to verify the numbers.
The results of a recent mini-survey are below. The numbers are real. The names are not. What it shows is that on different broker websites (with names you would recognize), unit sales for single family homes in the same town in the same time period … are radically different.
* Upscale seems to have stopped updating State MLS after July
What’s going on with ‘Big National Realty’? Their numbers are roughly 3 times what the MLS reports. Could it be that an under-paid, under-qualified clerk somewhere thought that to get the quarterly number you had to multiply the monthly totals by 3? And no manager or QC person looked at the results? Don’t know … just speculation.
And then ‘Upscale Realty’ … they pretty much nailed County MLS. Good job. But they haven’t updated State MLS since July.
But then what’s going on with the town of Wisteria. Wisteria has their own MLS. It has all the listings. Some of the Wisteria listings wind up on County MLS … roughly 20%. So it’s a pretty good bet that ‘Upscale’ is taking Wisteria listings from County MLS when they should be taking them from Wisteria MLS.
Independent Realty gets it right. OK, RMU does their numbers. Part of our process is to have data from a sample of towns checked back against the MLS. If anything doesn’t match, we find and fix the problem.
I don’t think it does anyone in the business any good when a buyer or seller can go to three prominent broker websites and see that sales in a town last quarter were either 375, 34, or 141.
The most sensible place to regulate this is with the MLSs. In each geography, the vast bulk of web traffic goes to a few brokers. In less than an hour, somebody at the MLS could look up the sales in a few towns and check the stats on the dominant broker sites. Do this, say, at the end of each quarter since a lot of these reports are quarterly. If there’s an issue, have the offending party take down those pages until it’s fixed.
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