Sale Dates and what they might mean
SalesPartner CMA reports currently show the agreement date as the Sale Date. A quick check indicates that the agreement date is also the sale date shown in Property Guru.
In SalesPartner we use the agreement date to calculate the days on the market.
Several SalesPartner agents have reported objections from clients when a sale in their area is reported as being on the market for a short period (say 6 days) but they remember seeing the For Sale sign up for some weeks. We have often been asked whether we should use the Unconditional Date as the sale date to avoid such confusion.
The reason for using the agreement date as the sale date becomes more obvious when dealing with apartments, new builds and sections where once a conditional contract is in place there is often minimal further marketing until the contract confirms. The property is effectively off the market (unless someone wishes to negotiate the existing purchase contract) even though the unconditional date (especially if dependent on the issue of a new title) can be months or even years away.
With most residential properties, marketing will continue while a conditional contract is in place but any further offers must be subject to the existing contract being cancelled. Despite the ongoing marketing it makes sense to record the sale date as the date when the parties agreed to the sale and calculate days on market from listing to agreement dates.
Days on market are distorted more by re-listing a property or a change of agency than by using the agreement date as the sale date.
Sales however do not get recorded in the statistics until they go unconditional. To keep their vendors and buyers up to date with the market some of our users want to generate reports of recent activity (based on unconditional dates – ie recently reported sales). When these reports e.g. for sales reported in July show sale dates in May or June, one could ask why the agent did not include those sales in earlier CMAs.
To help with providing clear information for our CMAs we will start replacing the column title: Sale Date with Agreement Date where suitable (or will fit) and add custom field where users can add explanations like: 'Sales reported (unconditional) in July selected by suburb and floor area'
When preparing anniversary letters some subscribers have suggested we base them on the settlement date as that is the date that formal change of ownership takes place and the new owners gain access to the property. An accurate settlement date is only available for your own sales and is really not critical to the effectiveness of anniversary letters. They are unlikely to arrive on specified dates and can include general statements like "This month marks the anniversary of your purchase of the property at _________" and any of the dates would do for calculating that anniversary.
Is confusion over sale dates a problem for you? Please send us an email with any suggestions.
When reading in CSV files from REINZ sales stats please be sure to select listing date, agreement date and unconditional date. If you would like to sort by unconditional date in the SalesPartner Gallery please include the appropriate column from the tool kit.
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