The New Jersey Association of Realtors has partnered with 10K Research and Marketing to collect data from all nine of the state’s multiple listing services and create monthly market reports.
One set of reports, called Local Market Updates, include figures for new listings, closed sales, median sales price, inventory, days on market and percent of list price received, as well as comparisons to the prior year and historical median sales price. The one-page reports detail activity for each municipality and county in the state and also separate information out by property type: single-family, townhouse/condo, or adult community.
Monthly Indicator reports summarize new listings, pending sales, closed sales and other activity for the entire state each month. Each MLS and local board receives a customized 15-page report for their market.
The state and county reports are publicly available, but local market reports for the 565 municipalities in the state are available to NJAR members only.
Jarrod Grasso, NJAR’s CEO, told NJBIZ.com that the project eliminates the association’s reliance on regionalized reports issued by the National Association of Realtors, which didn’t provide it with a true sense of local areas. The coordinated effort also ensures each transaction is counted only once, even if it’s being reported to more than one MLS — an issue in past attempts to compile the data.
“The issue that it caused is that you were inflating housing statistics — for better, for worse,” Grasso told NJBIZ. “So this way, now we have a true picture for what’s really going on here in the state.”
In a statement, NJAR said the report will also serve as an educational tool for consumers, legislators and the media.
“It allows an unprecedented look at the health of the state and counties’ housing markets on a monthly basis. Whether a buyer is interested in purchasing a single-family home, a townhouse or condo, or a property in an adult community, the data is broken down in those three categories for an easy understanding of a complex market,” the trade group said.
The MLSs participating in the project are Cape May County MLS, Garden State MLS, Hudson County MLS, Jersey Shore MLS, Middlesex County MLS, Monmouth/Ocean MLS, New Jersey MLS, South Jersey Shore Regional MLS, and TREND.
10K is a division of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. The firm also offers an interactive market analytics tool, Infosparks (formerly known as “The Thing”), which Chicagoland MLS MRED deployed in 2011, and produces local market statistics reports for the research arm of the National Association of Realtors.
