Our monthly recaps of the Pasadena Real Estate market are featured at Pasadena Now. I received a call this week from one of the reporter’s inquiring why our sales figures for December were different than what was being reported by the California Association of Realtors and Dataquick.

Sales Results as Reported

The disparity seemed to occur in the median home price. When we report at up2date, we usually break out the sales of single family homes from the condo’s and townhome’s. We feel it better reflects the true market conditions as we also present the number of units sold. To compare our results with Dataquick, I also combined the two categories. Doing that I found that our results indicated a median home price of $582,500, compared to Dataquick’s number of $510,000. Our median price for December 2006 indicated a value of $709,375 compared to their number of $730,000.

Dataquick’s numbers indicate a lower median price than other area cities including Monrovia, San Gabriel, Claremont, Walnut and even Los Angeles. Very surprising news that the median price could fall below the median home price in Los Angeles.

Explaining the Disparity

To provide you with a little understanding of the data that is used, our main source of information is the i-Tech MLS. This is the primary website of information for real estate in the Pasadena area. If you are looking to buy or sell a property, this is where the overwhelming majority of searches occur. While this is an excellent source it does have its limitations. It will only report on properties that are listed in the its database. A property that is being foreclosed on at auction will not appear. A property being sold by its owner as a “For Sale By Owner”, will also not be listed. Other things can also influence the value. Most of our sales results are reported between the 6th – 8th day of the following month. If a home sells on December 30, but the agent does not change the reporting in the MLS until January 12, then it would not be included in our reporting. In re-examining the December sales results today, i-Tech shows sales of 40 units and a median price of $751,250. We reported sales of 37 units and a median price of $775,000 on January 8. Dataquick is showing 50 units sold. We also reported unit sales of 32 condo/townhomes, while Dataquick shows 28 units sold. This indicates possible confusion in how a property is classified when it is sold.

I called John Karevoll of Dataquick in an attempt to get a better understanding of where their data is culled. He is the analysis guru and frequently seen on TV. Unfortunately, I never received a call back. My guess is that it comes from county tax records, which would show a greater number of home sales or transfer of ownership.

Reporting

Due to the data trickling in over several days, we will change our reporting period from the 8th of the following month to the 15th. This should provide a more accurate indicator of the actual market statistics. Since we are experiencing a much slower number of unit sales in this market, a few omitted transactions can result in value changes of as much as 3%. This minor change should more accurately reflect the changes in the Pasadena housing market.