David's Trade Journal

[david_3011]

Your Email: An Appraiser’s Comment on MLS Membership

David, I have been trying to follow you with moderate success. Since you like to look at the whole picture, I would like to advise you of the following.

I am an appraiser member of the Mid-Florida MLS. Most appraisers I know are not paying members and access the MLS on line using other's codes. That is coming to a halt August 15. After that the security (which I could explain if you are interested) will deny them access - no pay, no play. It seems to me that lots of appraisers will be joining the MLS in the next six weeks or so in order to maintain access. I don't know about other areas of the country, but if they make similar security arrangements, the number of Realtors should show a big increase without a concomitant increase in the number of real estate sales people. That would surely skew your analysis of numbers of Realtors/numbers of sales.

I just thought you should become aware of this, as otherwise the new numbers might affect your analysis in a negative way. Keep up the good work. You can never learn too much.

Till then

Tom

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David’s Note:

Thank you for your info in a well thought-out email, Tom.

The MLS membership that I’m tracking requires everyone to pay for his/her membership, and it has been like that for a long time. However, your email reminded me to point out that NOT all MLS members are real estate agents. Therefore, the number’s skewed anyway. Now, as far as being used as a sentiment indicator, I don’t think these details are all that important. It’s the long-term trend that’s important to us. One month of ups or downs doesn't make it a trend. Appraisers are part of the real estate community anyway. Besides, majority of the MLS members are real estate agents.

In addition, this is only one of the 18 indicators that I’m using for my housing market analysis. I don’t look at one indicator and jump on the conclusion with prejudice. I’ll introduce them as I see fit in the future housing market reports.