In praise of Terradatum
Posted on April 2, 2008
Filed Under Excellence, Portland, Statistics, Real Estate, General |
A good company is defined by three things, each of which reinforces the others: the quality of the product or service provided; the quality of people it employs; and how well and quickly it follows through on fixing problems. Standard seems to be that the rep or support person - or even president - tells you what you want to hear, then hangs up the phone or goes back to his own office, finishes his chicken salad sandwich and forgets the conversation ever happened.
Terradatum is an excellent company. They have a product that manipulates esoteric data into understandable and valuable segments - especially now with the six month search algorithm - have a support rep who took a concern seriously, and, with the help of tech, turned it around and fixed it within 48 hours. [Thank you, Rita!]
Here’s the chart as it should have looked a few days ago, with one week added:
Note, again, that, while not quite as dramatic, the last three reporting periods are down. As I said in an earlier comment, March shows new listings down slightly, expirations up considerably; so even though pending sales are down again nearly 30%, aggregate inventory is actually sliding somewhat, unusual in the spring.
I’ll post March numbers tomorrow.
Again: Thank you, Terradatum.
UPDATE: I really should have added this: Informed skepticism - the genesis of my own doubt - is always appreciated.
Comments
4 Responses to “In praise of Terradatum”
Leave a Reply
I guess I’m a still a little confused on the numbers - are there really 600 people a week giving up and delisting their houses?
Surely the total number of houses “On market” should pencil out something like this -
Number this week = last week’s # + new listings - (sold houses + delistings)
The under contact shouldn’t really matter until it either falls out of contract or sells or gets delisted?
Completely agree on the speed of their response - mistakes happen - it’s how a business deals with those mistakes that makes
Git, there were 2700+ expired listings in March, compared to 1700+ in 2007. That did not mean they weren’t relisted; that would work its way into the new listing cat, down from 5400 to 5000.
Actual formula is this: LW + new listings - under contract [under contract takes the listing out of the FS cat; sold is only an extension and isn’t counted at all] - expired listings…
Cheers for the explanation Jeff - if there is another blogger meetup I’ll buy you a beer as thanks
When you list does the listing automatically expire after a given time or can you extend the listing as long as you are working with a client?
I assume anything that falls out of contract and goes back on the market simply comes in under “new listings” again.
The numbers still surprise me to be honest - I’d expect inventory to be increasing coming into spring - a positive sign indeed from the sellers point of view, even if market clearing time is still pretty high.
Good job correcting the problem for Terradatum - it’s not often companies are as responsive as that.
Git, beer accepted.
>When you list does the listing automatically expire after a given time or can you extend the listing as long as you are working with a client?
A listing contract contains an expiration date, entered into the MLS. Expiration is automatic, UNLESS it’s extended in a signed addendum, in which case the new expiration date is entered by the listing agent and it never appears as expired.
Terradatum: all I did was whine. They fixed it.