Noah's new "backend data" shows StreetEasy numbers inflated?

well hold on here. I have a different data source and we have our own rules for calculating what we perceive as ACTIVE inventory.

I would NOT mis interpret that to mean streeteasy is inflated, by any means!

Then why have SteetEasy numbers always been about 1000 above Miller Samuel? Now with your new third source data, I think you would have to admit that you have found your numbers to be more in agreement with the Miller Samuel numbers vs StreetEasy.

the source of the data. I can never speak for streeteasy, who I know is all about high quality data, but they likely have expanded coverage areas and listings that are not shared by the manhattan brokerage community.

Unfortunately Streeteasy is at the mercy of data sourced by brokers when a property is in a phase of "in contract" to "sold," "closed," or "unavailable."
These 30,60,90 days of "in contract" have no real verification.

On the flipside, brokers list some apartments twice when trying to hide history of a unit,like having a listing as unit 7, and then later as 7a.

Real time data is near impossible to get accurately. I would put much more weight on confirmed quartely numbers.

Actually I may be wrong as to the flipside argument I gave.
Today's streeteasy search of all manhattan yields;

We found 11,888 listings
Median price: $1,005,000 Median size: 1,104 ft² Median price per ft²: $1,050
Information on Manhattan

So there must be some form of weeding out.

i wouldnt.

I just think there was a lack of motivation to really clean the data propertly to account for all the different ways brokers 'list' or enter or update listing information.

Again, wont speak for SE as I know they believe deeply in high quality data, but we spent 4 months on cleansing, spot checks, fixing status errors, other bugs, etc...before building anything. it sucked and was extremely tedious work and there were tons of errors and listing discrepencies to account for.

truth, I think your explanation is more on target. I have always believed (and stated here) that StreetEasy data was way to opened to being minipulated whether on purpose or by accident. Therefore not that all reliable. That would also imply for anyone using this data for extrapolating.

The 11,888 number comes from all available listings, as well as in contract listings, and co-exclusives. However, for people searching for a home on our site, we provide access to ALL of these listings. This number is never used in our market reports. For our market reports and for any market analysis we do, we only include listings with verified, unique addresses. We exclude listings with no addresses, co-exclusives, as well as in-contract listings. This brings our inventory down to about 8400. Our numbers maybe about 800-1000 listings higher than Jonathan Miller's and UrbanDigs because we use multiple data sources, as well as MANY smaller brokerages who manually upload their listings onto our site. Like UrbanDigs, we are constantly cleaning our data, doing spot checks, finding and fixing bugs, etc. And we always appreciate the feedback!

Well depends what each organization is doing. If they painstakenly weeded out existing data and going forward either have a really smart computer program or individual bodies scrutinize each new listing as they are added, you will have near accurate numbers.

I guess my question to streeteasy would be, "Is a sample like this listing treated in the figures correctly?"
The Grand Madison PHL. Shows "in contract" since 5/7/08.
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/231248-condo-225-fifth-avenue-midtown-south-new-york
Was also listed for rent until recently.
Where does this 1 unit of inventory end up?

Also what about a unit that is not in streeteasy's system at all?
259 Bowery has been in Halstead's listing for quite sometime, but not on streeteasy.
Where does this 1 unit of inventory not end up?
http://www.halstead.com/detail.aspx?id=1697300

"And we always appreciate the feedback!"

Please! We appreciate your site...and certainly your quick response.

"Is Noah now finally admitting that the StreetEasy inventory numbers have always been inaccurate and inflated? Also that Miller samuel numbers are more in line with what is happening now and for the most part in the past? "

Sounds more like wishful thinking.

The trend is what matters. If its "inflated" now, its inflated before. Miller samuel might be undercounting. In the end, you pick one consistent measure and follow the trend... and the trend is still way high on either scale.

It's all about inventory. I strongly welcome another inventory database and with the potential for neighborhood breakout mind you. Go get'em Noah.

I think its great to see streeteasy participating in this discussion and their quick reply to the OP question brought up.

It IS a constant battle to have as high quality data as possible to make this market more transparent. It seems to be a neverending job! props to SE

"...and the trend is still way way high on either scale."

Incorrect. Inventory is slightly above the 10 year average of 7680 and 1500 lower than the same period in 08 and about the same level as in 05 and 06.

The trend can be misleading if you don't properly scrutinize the data behind it.

For instance, you might want to weigh the current inventory against the large volume of new developments entering the market. An interesting number to see would be what percentage of the inventory is resale vs new build / condo vs coop / pre-war vs post etc etc.. relative to years past. More than ever the market is being diluted with new construction so if you are in the market for uptown pre-war coop, you may very well be looking at a much smaller inventory relative to previous years, while the overall inventory appears high. By drilling down the data you can better predict how inventory may affect prices in a specific property class..

"It's all about inventory. I strongly welcome another inventory database and with the potential for neighborhood breakout mind you. Go get'em Noah."

So, its an even/odd day schedule, SteveF? You trash noah only on the even days?

steveF has made it official: "It's all about inventory."

People, we can rest now.

Just thinking here that now that steveF has chimed in, we do need an expert opinion by LICC who, although he does not live in Manhattan, not only knows everything about the Manhattan real estate market, but has a view of the place if he sticks a mirror out of his bathroom window and points west.

WHO CARES about what the inventory was or is currently. The ppl who pulled, are they coming back at 50%, 70% or 10% re-turn rate?????

Thatz all folkz... .let's just see how many "don't gotta sell lemmings" pop back up shall we? Happy Holidays...

w67th - yes, that is a very interesting question. i hope to clear that up too soon

Question for Noah and Streeteasy.

I take it my first post regarding "in contracts" is somewhat accurate?
My question is, "how are "in contract" properties treated for inventory numbers? Do they stay in the inventory figure total until some form of delisting( "sold," "closed," or "unavailable") ?

when we first launched the SE widget, it had a few rules for ACTIVE inventory:

1. eliminate duplicates
2. eliminate open listings
3. eliminate listings with no exact address (linked to #2)
4. island of manhattan only
5. exclude listings that are IN CONTRACT - since it goes from active, to in contract, to closed, we are covered.

That is why my widget powered by SE has a 8500 number, not the 11K+ or so if you do a general market search without these rules.

truthskr10, when we do market analysis (i.e. our quarterly reports, articles in the press, etc) we do not count listings in contract.

The numbers for each neighborhood on the search form in our front page does include pending contracts, but you can see the "cleaner" numbers yourself by going to advanced search, excluding contracts and excluding listings without addresses. It's not exactly the same number we use, but it's close.

Also as we said, we provide search results for our users to go through. We do exclude lots of "bad quality" listings, but we rather show some duplicate co-exclusives, for example, so our users can get as many good listings as possible.

Noah is trying to come up with aggregate market numbers, so it makes sense for him to be more aggressive when removing listings that seem duplicate or fake.

Our numbers will never match, but when we look at our data with the a similar approach as Noah's, the numbers are in the same ballpark.

And as they said above, in the end what matters is not the absolute number, but the trends over time.

Thank you for the info Noah.
So if we are in a time where "in contracts" are much more flakey such as financing falling through more easily,or a broker wanting to show action on a new development to kosher another unit's sale, etc., this is probably the weakest link to providing dead on inventory numbers?
Particularly with new developments, I've seen many "in contracts" like on say units 4,6, and 9.Two months later unit 5 goes in contract....and later closes. And units 4,6, and 9 are all of asudden back on the market month # 3.

And I hope you don't think I'm trying to knock your system or anyone's system. As my name says, I am just a truth seeker. Want to know all mitigating factors that may have a part in possibly distorting figures.

A possible suggestion for down the road. Maybe a running statistic of succesful "in contracts" to "solds" or "closed" down the road?
It could establish a floating rate of inventory.
I think as an example, if we had history of 70% closed in Sept '07 and then 40% closed in Sept '09 it would provide even more accurate info as to what's going on.

Streeteasy

Thank you, and yes I agree the trends are most significant.
A suggestion, maybe a "report a listing" feature when a user finds a duplicate? Let us help you with the grunt work. :)

"And as they said above, in the end what matters is not the absolute number, but the trends over time."

couldnt agree more