The Ellis Team and NBC-2 broke a story of concern regarding reported housing statistics reported by the Florida Association of Realtors. These numbers have been unintentionally inflated due to multple MLS boards reporting sales on the same home, because the listing agent listed the property into more than one MLS.

Real Estate Numbers May Be Inflated By Duplication

When the Realtor closes out the sale in MLS, each MLS reports a sale up to FAR (Florida Association of Realtors). FAR compiles the data and releases a report and chart for the entire state. The report each MLS sends to FAR is raw data, a compilation of summary totals. There is currently no way for FAR to realize the duplicate reportings, so the end report contains inflated data.

This is important for a few reasons:

#1. Billions of dollars worth of decisions are made in the SWFL real estate market, and these numbers are one of the benchmarks builders, developers, investors, businesses, and the buying and selling public use to make decisions about building shopping centers, businesses, homes, communities, and what product mix and at what price points.

#2. Once the duplication problem is rectified, 2006 may appear to be a much worse market because it won’t appear to stack up against 2005, even though 2005 was artificially higher than it really was.

#3. The general public reads that homes appreciated at a certain pace, so they believe their home is worth a certain amount. All real estate is local, so because the overall market was believed to be at a certain appreciation rate, it never was fair to expect every home appreciated at the exact same rate anyway. However, the entire market may have been accidently exagerated, so sellers shouldn’t draw conclusions about today’s market based upon inaccurate data.

If you’re considering buying or selling in today’s market, it pays to consult a professional. Making a mistake in today’s market can cost you in untold ways. We’ll discuss how in a later article posted on this Blog.

 

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