{"id":6269,"date":"2011-03-14T08:39:24","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T13:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/?p=6269"},"modified":"2011-03-14T08:39:24","modified_gmt":"2011-03-14T13:39:24","slug":"i-can-predict-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/14\/i-can-predict-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"I Can Predict the Future!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"My crystal ball says that closings in March are going to trail last year by a wide margin.<\/strong> Look for an article citing GHAR’s March stats to appear in the mainstream media early April, and then another one based on the Warren Group’s figures in May. Both will show a decrease in activity. <\/p>\n

April closings will trail last year by an even larger margin than March! But most people won’t hear about that until the GHAR sourced story in May or the Warren Group piece in June.<\/p>\n

How can I possibly know these things weeks, or even months, before they happen? By looking at the number of contracts instead of waiting for the closings.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contracts are a very strong predictor of closings. The contract date is when the buyers and sellers negotiate the deal … when the deal comes together. The closing date is simply when all the paperwork is completed. Most closing happen 45 – 60 days after the contract was negotiated. Sure there are some deals that fall apart. And, yes, there are other deals that never seem to close. But we should be able to account for those factors in our predictions. <\/p>\n

By the way, there are also deals that aren’t even entered into the MLS until the after a property is under contract, or even until after the closing. This doesn’t really go along with the spirit of the MLS, as a forum for advertising properties for sale, but whatever. Bragging rights are generally established via what shows up in the MLS, so some agents try to game the system. For my purposes, these private deals will work to balance out some the deals that fall apart without closing.<\/p>\n

So that’s what will be coming in the next couple of months. Predicting a dramatic decrease in the number of May and June closings versus 2010 doesn’t even require a crystal ball. Last year’s home buyer tax credit ensured that those two months were extra-busy for closings.<\/p>\n

If only I could figure out how to predict the lottery…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My crystal ball says that closings in March are going to trail last year by a wide margin. Look for an article citing GHAR’s March stats to appear in the mainstream media early April, and then another one based on the Warren Group’s figures in May. Both will show a decrease in activity. April closings will trail last year by an even larger margin than March! But most people won’t hear about that until the<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1568,1584,1591],"tags":[1896,4013,3181,2712,3182],"class_list":["post-6269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buying","category-market-statistics","category-selling","tag-closings","tag-contracts","tag-ghar","tag-real-estate","tag-warren-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6269"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6348,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6269\/revisions\/6348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}