Submitting Housing Data to NAR: Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of data are you looking to gather?

We gather home sales data by price distribution as well as by number of bedrooms. We are also gathering single family, condo and pending sales and the active listings for single family and condo sales. Another part of our data gathering is the time on the market of units sold and the type of financing used when purchasing a home. 

When we create each report, it's important to have the date set for the first day of the month to the last day.

What is a pending sale?

Any house that has a contract on it and is no longer listed as 'active' is a pending sale.

Are you gathering state or county data?

We want data in its most specific format. If you can provide data by county then that is greatly preferred but if the data you can provide is only available at the state or MSA level then we can make use of that as well.

Do you want the data e-mailed or faxed?

It's best to receive the data in e-mail format.  Research is moving away from faxes to try and minimize our paper output, and it is easier to manage the data in an electronic format.

How far back do we need to report on our data?  What if we just started reporting it?

It's always good to get at least a year's worth of data so that we have something to compare the data to. So if you send data for December 2008 it's helpful to have the data going back to December 2007. If you cannot go back in time just send the data you have going forward.

Can we send the data quarterly?

We want to try to get data on a monthly basis and if the data is available only quarterly its best to get the data broken down by month so that we can divide the sales activity accurately for those months.

We have the data on the Web, can you get it yourself?

Yes, we can grab all data from your Web site  - just make sure that we have access to the site and any Web addresses we might need.

Don't we already send you data?

It's likely that you are, but if you are unsure, chances are that you are not. Make sure that whoever handles the responsibility for your data is sending the data to NAR, or have them follow up with us to make sure both sides are on the same page.  

We can't separate single family and condo sales data  - do you still need our data?

You can still provide your data, but make sure that it is clearly labeled that all  types of homes are included in the sales information.

I have a question that wasn't answered in this FAQ.

Any questions should be directed to Michael Hyman at mhyman@realtors.org or Jed Smith at jsmith@realtors.org - they will be happy to answer any questions you may have or walk you through the process of reporting your data to NAR Research.