Getting to know MLS statistics: Intro to Metrics

One of the benefits available at RAM MLS is InfoSparks and FastStats. These tools allow you to create custom charts and graphs to share on your social media pages and with clients.

InfoSparks is a housing market research tool designed specifically for ease of use, fast analysis, and simple sharing. All real estate is local. Let’s explore your housing market together. FastStats includes pre-built monthly reports for Single-Family, Condos, Zip Codes, and more.

Let’s take a moment to understand the 10 metrics that are found on the reports and charts. Metrics represent the residential real estate topics that areas and variables pop against. Some are counts, some are calculations. Some calculations are median, some are just average. In combination, they are the primary descriptors for what makes a market tick.

Sales Price – Calculations are based on sold data. Prices do not account for seller concessions. Median represents the point at which half of the homes that sold in a given month were priced higher and half were priced lower. Average is the mean sales price for all closed sales in a given month.*

New Listings – A count of the properties that have been newly listed on the market in a given month.

Homes for Sale – The number of properties available for sale in active status at the end of a given month. Also known as inventory. For this metric, the “12/6/3 months” calculation is the average of the most recent 12/6/3 months of data.

Pending Sales – A count of the properties on which contracts have been accepted in a given month.

Closed Sales – A count of the actual sales that have closed in a given month. Calculations are based on sold data.

Days on Market – Median or average number of days between when a property is listed and when an offer is closed in a given month. Calculations are based on closed sales.*

Months Supply – The inventory of homes for sale at the end of a given month, divided by the average monthly Pending Sales from the last 12 months. Also known as the absorption rate.

Percentage of List Price – Percentage found when dividing a listing’s sales price by its list price, then taking the average or median for all sold listings in a given month, not accounting for seller concessions. Calculations are based on sold data. Example:

• A property is listed at $200,000, reduced to $190,000, and taken off the market. Then the same property is listed again at $180,000 a few months later and is further reduced to $175,000. It closes for $160,000. We take the ratio of $160,000: $175,000 or 91.4% instead of $160,000:$200,000 because a new listing ID was issued.

Price Per Sq Ft – Calculations are based on sold data. Prices do not account for seller concessions. Median represents the point at which half of the homes that sold in a given month were priced higher and half were priced lower, divided by the number of finished square feet. Average is the mean sales price for homes sold in a given month divided by the number of finished square feet.*

Dollar Volume – The total dollar amount of all sales for the selected criteria.

What is your favorite Metric? Do you use a metric that was not found in our article? Feel free to share your favorite metric with us (email jeff@ramaui.com) and it could be a future MLS article.

* Sales with a Days on Market of less than 0, or a Percent of Original Price that is less than 50 percent or more than 200 percent, are added to the sales count but are not factored into the Price, Price Per Square Foot, or Days on Market.