Several of my recent posts to our Gatlinburg Real Estate blog have recently shown up on other agent’s blog sites with only the most minimum alteration. While I guess that I should be flattered I’m not certain that’s the way I feel. While the information we provide isn’t copyrighted it isn’t designed to provide information for our competitor’s marketing efforts either. In fact, there are lots of topics to write about and I can’t help but think that my competitors could if they tried come up with their own topics to write about. It is just a little irritating when other real estate professionals can’t seem to come up with their own ideas.

One of the posts that was more or less copied from my site onto a competitor’s was my recent analysis of the state of our market dated Feburary 27th. After looking a little more closely at our new MLS software there appears to be a significant bug in the new system. While the market monitor function of our system as of today shows 178 sales during the last 30 days the actual data is including several sales that CLOSED PRIOR TO THE LAST 30 DAYS. It seems that a good number of the sales reported by this function as occurring during the past 30 days actually happened in previous months and in fact some were sold YEARS ago. The actual number of sales (all categories including land, lots, single family residences, condos, mobile homes, and commercial properties) that really closed during the most recent 30 days is only 136. As you can see this significantly overstates the sales data for the period. Apparently the system is counting as sold any listing with a status of SOLD that is edited during the past 30 days causing the error.

The number of new listings appears also to be incorrectly reported by our board of Realtor’s new market monitor function. A closer look indicates that there are actually 803 new listings that have been filed by area Realtors during the past 30 days. Because of the statistical reporting error, sales are being grossly overreported by our MLS program. The correct ratio as of today for the last 30 days when comparing new listings to sales is approximately 5.9 to 1. This is somewhat different from the approximate 5.5 to 1 ratio that our MLS system is erroneously reporting.

What all of this means is that our market, while appearing to be showing signs of picking up somewhat, is actually even weaker than we previously thought. For sellers, this is just one more reminder of how important it is to be properly priced in this market. Overpriced listings simply aren’t selling but that isn’t really a surprise as they never do. In a slow market like the one we have in most areas of the United States at this time there are just more unsold listings than normal. If you are looking for professional real estate advice involving buying or selling ANY property here in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, please contact us!