Realtors limit home sales data to quarterly reports
By Patrick Healy

The Rhode Island Association of Realtors has decided to release statistics of residential real estate sales only on a quarterly basis instead of monthly, which the group had been doing for the past six years. The Realtors' president said the change was made to provide a clearer picture of real estate trends. "It was a response to newspapers literally making statements based on inaccurate statistical deductions and assumptions," said Sharon Steele, who was installed as the 50th president of RIAR in October. Also, the Rhode Island Association of Realtors spoke with David Lereah, its economist in Washington, D.C., earlier this fall and decided since the National Association of Realtors put out its information quarterly, it made little sense for a state association to diverge from the national guideline. "The only thing you can do with a monthly trend in order for it to be accurate is to compare it to that exact month in another year," Steele said. "Our business is not only seasonal, it's cyclical, and by comparing one month to a previous month is like comparing apples and oranges." Steele said for people who don't understand the real estate industry, this can be confusing. August, for example is typically one of the busiest months of the year for home sales. The number of closings in that month represent transactions that began in June, and people generally like to close before the end of August so their children can be ready for school in September. "If someone reads an article and says that if you look at September's numbers they're nothing close to August's numbers, you are going to make a bad assumption," she said. "We need to educate the public so they truly understand what the industry is about." Although the Rhode Island Builders Association puts out a chart of monthly comparative building permits issued in the state, the association's president Roger Warren agreed that monthly data was inconclusive.

Published 12/3/2001

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