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Tucson MLS Sold 7% Better Than Reported

December 29, 2007

Every month I notice there are more closed sales than are being reported in the Tucson MLS Statistical reports. There is a cut off date each month when they pull the data. Unfortunately there are some brokerages that don’t get their sales entered in a timely manner which then skews the data. On any individual month it might not be significant but added together it can paint a different picture of the actual state of the market.

I went back to January 2007 and pulled the current count for each month of sold transactions. Jan - April I pulled for all areas to compare Apples to Apples. In May the Tucson MLS limited the reporting data to just the Tucson Areas which I have said on numerous occasions is how it should have been reported all along.

Here is the catch. Once those sales are entered into the MLS data there is no mechanism for including these sales in the data. They just don’t exist as far as the reporting is concerned. The numbers reported are picked up by the media as the “actual” numbers of transactions.

It will be awhile before the total December 2007 are reported and then the last of those sales could be three months or more being reported. Since the media is hitting this whole issue of the Housing Market strong I thought it would be a good idea to shed some positive light on the issue that I’m sure even the Tucson MLS isn’t going to be reporting and possible isn’t even aware of these sales slipping through the reporting crack.

Here are the numbers:

There are 810 sales representing 7% of the total sales for Tucson entered into the MLS which are not showing up in the statistics reports. This is through the first 11 months. Just this morning from data pulled last night there were 3 more closed sales entered for November.

Once all the numbers are entered sometime around the end of the first quarter of 2008 it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility this could reach 1000.

This past week we have been told that a 6.9 % decrease in New Home Sales is a Plunge, Slump, Decline, Then how should a 7% increase in reported sales be described? I’ll let you decide.

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4 Responses to “Tucson MLS Sold 7% Better Than Reported”

1. concerned Says:
   December 30th, 2007 at 10:22 pm

   Quite a difference all right…

2. Glenn in Naples (2 comments.) Says:
   January 2nd, 2008 at 2:31 pm

   Happy New Year David.

   The reporting of statistics on multiple listing services in some cases do need some improvement.

   I find it very frustrating that some brokers are not entering closings in a timely manner. This might be the case with your board.

   But I find it unacceptable that closings entered subsequent to a particular date are not included in the proper month of closing and they just let them drop into space.

   Maybe your board can enact a policy for entering closings within a certain number of days?

3. David Smith Says:
   January 2nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm

   Glenn,

   Happy New Year. I agree it is unacceptable, but it seems to be acceptable here. Unfortunately!

4. Glenn in Naples (2 comments.) Says:
   January 4th, 2008 at 10:53 am

   Hopefully one day there will be consistency between local MLS’ as far as statistical information reported and reporting requirements.

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