Market Data
Real Estate Market Indicators and When Each One Moves
No figures, levels or thresholds are stated here, because every one of them is local and dated. Pull current values from your multiple listing service and from the federal statistical agencies and industry associations that publish each series, and record the reporting period next to anything you quote to a client.
Housing data arrives on a staggered schedule. Some series register a change in conditions almost immediately, some register it once contracts are signed, and some cannot register it until deals close and records are filed. Knowing the order is most of the skill.
This reference sorts the common indicators by when they move, names the publisher of each, and sets out how to combine them without reading a signal into ordinary noise.
Why Timing Is the Organizing Idea
A housing transaction has a fixed sequence. A buyer decides to look, applies for financing, tours, writes an offer, goes under contract, and closes weeks later. A shift in conditions enters that sequence at the front and reaches the recorded deed at the back, so the same underlying change shows up in different series at different times.
That is what makes a series leading, coincident or lagging. A leading series measures something near the front of the sequence, such as an application or a decision to build. A coincident series measures the present balance of supply and demand. A lagging series measures completed transactions, which is to say decisions that were actually made one or two months earlier.
The practical consequence is that a lagging series can still be rising while conditions have already turned, and nothing is wrong with the data. Closed prices in a given month describe contracts signed before it. Treating them as a current reading is the most common mistake in this whole subject.
So read the front of the sequence for direction and the back of it for confirmation. Neither one is the better indicator. They answer different questions, and the ones at the back are the only ones that settle whether a change was real.
Series That Move Early
Residential Permits
Authorizations to build, published by the federal statistical agency that tracks construction. A permit precedes the finished unit by a long interval, so permit volume describes future supply rather than present supply. Read the trend over several months; a single month is noisy.
Purchase Loan Applications
Weekly application volume reported by the mortgage industry's trade association, split between purchases and refinances. Watch the purchase component only, since refinance volume reflects interest rates rather than housing demand.
Contracts Signed
A pending sales series published monthly by the national association of practitioners, counting contracts in force rather than completed transfers. It sits ahead of closings by roughly the length of a typical escrow, which is why it turns before closed sales do.
Showing Activity
Appointments per offered unit, available from scheduling platforms and from some multiple listing services. This is the earliest demand reading available at the submarket level, and unlike the national series it describes your actual boundary.
New Units Offered
Listings entering the market during a period. A jump signals sellers moving toward the exit before the reason becomes visible in prices; a sustained drop signals owners staying put and supply tightening further.
Household Sentiment
Survey series on consumer confidence and on whether respondents consider it a good time to buy or sell, published by government agencies, universities and industry groups. Sentiment is not a transaction, so treat it as a soft and early input rather than a count.
Series That Describe Now or Confirm Later
Supply Duration
Offered inventory measured against the monthly rate of closings, stated in months. This is the workhorse present-tense reading, because it puts both sides of the market in one figure. Conventional bands exist, but the direction of travel matters more than the label.
Median Marketing Time
The middle number of days from listing to accepted contract. It lags modestly, since it can only be computed once units go under contract, and it confirms what showing activity suggested a few weeks earlier.
Price Reductions
The share of offered units that have lowered an asking price. It sits between early and present: sellers react to thin traffic before the recorded price level moves, so this series turns ahead of closed prices while still describing units on the market today.
Median Closed Price
The middle price among completed transfers. Firmly lagging, because it reports contracts signed before the closing month. It is also sensitive to which segments happened to close, so a move can reflect mix rather than value.
Contract-to-Ask Ratio
Accepted price against the asking price in force at acceptance. Compute it on closings and it lags; compute it on pendings and it is nearly current. State which basis you used, because the two versions are not comparable.
Recorded Transfers
Deed recordings at the county. The most complete count available, since it captures transfers that never reached the open market, and the slowest, because recording adds delay on top of settlement. Use it to audit, not to monitor.
Reading Errors That Produce False Signals
Most bad calls come from technique rather than from bad data. These are the failures worth guarding against.
Ignoring seasonality. Housing activity has a strong annual rhythm. Compare a period to the same period a year earlier, or use a series the publisher has already adjusted, and never read an ordinary seasonal decline as a turn.
Reacting to one release. Any single month can move on weather, a holiday calendar, or a handful of unusual transactions. Require a direction to persist across several releases before you act on it.
Confusing mix with value. A median moves when a different slice of the market happens to close, not only when properties change in value. Check unit price and the distribution by segment before concluding that values moved.
Applying national series to one address. Federal and association releases describe metropolitan areas or the country. Direction may translate to your submarket; levels never do.
Missing a revision. Several widely watched series are revised after first publication. A trend built on initial estimates can disappear when the revisions land.
Reading a count without its denominator. Inventory rising alongside faster sales is a different market from inventory rising alongside slower sales. Supply and demand are only meaningful against each other.
Quoting a figure without its window. Stating a number without the period it covers invites a client to compare it against something measured differently, and you will not be there when they do.
Questions About Reading Market Indicators
Which indicator should I watch if I can only watch one?
Supply duration for your own submarket, because it combines the two forces that set prices in a single figure and it describes the present rather than the recent past. If you can watch a second, add the share of units that have reduced asking price, which turns earlier and tells you where the first one is heading.
Where do I get this data without paying for it?
Your multiple listing service supplies member statistics for your actual boundary and is the most important source you already have. The federal agencies that publish construction, permit, ownership and price series make their data public, as does the central bank's economic data service, and the national practitioner association and the mortgage lending association publish regular releases. Read the methodology note attached to any series before you quote it.
How often should I be checking?
Match the cadence to the release schedule and to the decision. Series published monthly are worth reviewing monthly. Weekly application volume and your own submarket's new listings and showings are worth a weekly look in unsettled conditions. When a client has an offer out or a unit on the market, look at direct competition daily.
How do I explain this to a client without burying them?
Give them one number and one consequence. Name the measurement, say what it implies for the decision in front of them, and stop. If they want the reasoning, it is in the report. A client who remembers one implication is better served than a client who was handed six statistics and no conclusion.
Do these indicators show up on the licensing exam?
In a limited way. The exam tests the vocabulary and the underlying logic, such as what supply duration measures or what marketing time indicates, rather than current values or forecasting. The detailed tracking described here is practice knowledge for after you are licensed.
Can I tell a client the market has bottomed or peaked?
No. A turning point is only identifiable after enough lagging series have confirmed it, which by definition is later. Describe what the early series are doing, name what would have to hold for the change to persist, and let the client decide. Predicting a turn is not advice you are licensed to give.