April Sullivan Sales Data Posted

Hey, everybody. My monthly Current Market Analysis for the Sullivan County real estate market is now posted. Please check it out and then drop back here to add your comments about what you're seeing here. Thanks.

Comments

[Chris L]

So who is telling the truth. Here is an article from the paper.

David's graphs showing different story.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070516/NEWS/705160349/-1/BIZ05

[David Knudsen]

I was very curious about the wide discrepency, too, between what was reported in the Times Herald Record for 1st quarter Sullivan single family sales and what my data show. The data that Sheldon Slifstein, the president of the Sullivan County Board of Realtors, reported to the Record came from the 1st Quarter Housing Trends Report from the New York State Association of Realtors (NYSAR). NYSAR's data showed that in Sullivan COunty there were only 81 single family sales in Sullivan County during the 1st quarter of 2007, down 40% from the 161 sales during the 1st quarter of 2006 and off 55% from the 181 sales during the 4th quarter of 2006.

I'm showing 123 single family sales during the 1st quarter in Sullivan County, much higher than the 81 sales reported by NYSAR. I've emailed NYSAR to ask how they collect their data, but because they report data for all counties in NY state (including those that do not have Multiple Listing Services), I'm assuming they are collecting data from government sources. Whenever a residential sale is closed, it's reported to the Federal government and each county's office of Real Property Services. Thirs party real estate data services, like First American, update their property record databases from these sources. I subscribe to First American's Realquest data system, which has the best coverage of Sullivan County. I'm often frustrated, though, when checking property data in Realquest that the information is often out of date. It can be 6 or 9 months before property records are updated to reflect sales. I've talked with Realquest about it, and they lay the blame on the lack of comprehensive electronic reporting of sales in this county. It always seems that the government derived data for this county is behind, and slow in being reported. In amazed that, in this day and age, Sullivan County does not have property data available to the public online.

Because of the lack of timely, comprehensive government reporting of property sales data in Sullivan County, there can be underreporting of recent (last month and quarter) sales data, while data further back can be more accurate, as the data catches up. I think that's exactly what's happened here. When you divide a less-than-complete recent sales number against a more complete past sales number, you can end up with a perceived sharp drop in sales.

I get my data differently, primarily from the Sullivan County Multiple Listing Service. I would be the first to agree that MLS data is not comprehensive, because it generally includes only sales made through Realtors, and not private sales or sales through real estate brokers that are not MLS members. We also have overlap here, with 3 other MLS's operating in areas that are adjacent to Sullivan County. Now, some of the brokers who are in the 'border' areas and make sales in Sullivan County belong to multiple MLSs, but some do not. So, for example, for the 1st quarter of 2007, there were 123 single family sales in the Sullivan MLS, but also 74 sales in Sullivan County reported in the neighboring Greater Hudson Valley MLS. Now, some of those were reported in both systems. But I had a member of the Greater Hudson MLS compare the 1st quarter sales, property by property, and it turns out there were 26 Sullivan sales in the GHVMLS that were not duplicated in the Sullivan MLS.

Also, when I do my monthly and quarterly runs on the Sullivan County MLS, I just search for "Single Family Residential" sales --- no condos, multi-families or mobiles. But that data pull does sweep up some properties that are reported in the Sullivan MLS that may be in adjoining counties, as well as new construction homes sold through the MLS. For the 1st quarter of 2007, the 123 sales included 8 new construction homes, as well as 12 homes actually located in adjacent counties. (The government reports new home sales separately from existing single family sales.) If I pull out those 21 houses, I end up with 101 existing single family sales in Sullivan County during the 1st quarter. Add back in the 26 sales reported in the Greater Hudson MLS not included in the Sullivan MLS, and just based on data from these 2 MLSs, we're at 127 sales --- much higher than the 81 reported by NYSAR. Then figure that there were probably quite a few sales not reported through the MLS, and you can easily see that NYSAR is grossly underreporting the sales.

I stand by my data. It may not be totally accurate because of the factors I mentioned, but I consistently draw from the same data source month after month, and so I believe does accurately report trends.