Every so often, I receive a postcard in the mail from a local Realtor with the neighborhood activity, mainly her listings.  I look at it just to see what numbers she's reporting.  Yesterday's mail received such a postcard, and it made me laugh so hard.  Why do Realtors think they can skew their stats to look good when they know they're sending their information to other Realtors as well who know it's a bunch of hooey?  I guess it's because the general public doesn't know better and she's trying to take advantage?

Here's the situation:  The postcard says "Average time on market for 2008 listings taken & sold is 16 days."  On the surface, this is correct.  She has listed and sold 13 properties in 2008 thus far for the average of 16 days.  However, Since January 1, 2008, she also has 5 properties pending with an average of 33 days; 13 active with an average of 64 days currently on the market; but also, 4 listing that have expired or canceled with an average of 72 days on the market.

This got me thinking that this still can't be right.  This agent has a listing two houses down from me that has been on the market 354 days already.  How are the stats so low?  My husband pointed out to me that she used the words "for 2008" in her stats.  Ok, so this doesn't include all the listings she took in 2007 that never sold and are still on the market in 2008.  If you look at those numbers and just ask what the average days on the market for anything that has "closed" in 2008, the numbers are quite different.  The average DOM for current listings is 103 days.  The average DOM for all 63 expired and canceled listings is a whopping 124 days!! The average DOM for SOLD properties since 1/1/2008 is 31 days.

What do these numbers tell you?  It tells you that she's lucked out with a handful of listings thus far this year, but if you look at the true numbers, she's not doing so hot.  Does she tell her clients of the 63 properties that didn't sell in over 4 months on the market?  Does she tell her clients about the properties she currently has sitting on the market?  Not only has my neighbor been listed for 354 days, but another one of her listings has been active for 358 days.

The lesson to learn here is, ask questions.  Don't take stats at their face value.  Ask how those stats came about and what the actual numbers really say.  I'm sure my neighbor is going to be quite offended if he checked his mail yesterday and found a postcard in it saying she sells in 16 days, yet he'll have been on the market an entire year next week!!

Remember, I work all of North Dallas County and Collin County including Richardson, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Garland, Rowlett, McKinney, etc... my car will take us anywhere you need to go!! 

 ARE YOU PACKED YET?!