For instance: If you look at Closed Sales, New Listings, Inventory, etc., in a particular market, the numbers you see on December 1 will be different – sometimes drastically so – on December 3 or December 5.
No, you’re not seeing things or running the report incorrectly.
They are, indeed, different.
And here’s why: If a home is sold (or just listed) near the end of the month, our analytics might not receive that information right away.
Once a home is closed on, that transaction needs to be recorded by the office, which then needs to be reported to the MLS – and only then is it included within our data.
That chain of events is why – especially during first few days of the month – the number of Closed Sales, New Listings, Inventory, etc., will be noticeably different than they will be just a few short days later.
Why? The simple answer is the MLS doesn’t have that data, so InfoSparks doesn’t have that data.
That said, InfoSparks still houses the most up-to-date data available within our MarketStats by ShowingTime suite of products. In fact, the numbers are updated nightly. The changes are minimal, however, so they’re not quite as noticeable as the drastic changes many of our clients have noticed at the beginning of the month.
All of this also explains why we prefer a live data approach, rather than a frozen one, which you can read about here.
A simple recap: The real estate market is constantly changing. If we were to freeze data and report static numbers from month to month, we would be reporting on how the market was, and not on how it is.
Things evolve over time; our market intelligence reflects the current state of the market, which is why you may notice changes near the beginning of the month.
Keep this in mind the next time you want to look up, create and/or share a monthly report for yourself, office or clients.
As always, our objective at ShowingTime is transparency in data methodology. If you want to discuss data methodology and reporting with us further, email research@showingtime.com for more information.
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