This week’s sales statistics are in! The following are the pending ratios for atlanta, Atlanta condos, McDonough, Stockbridge, and Fulton County. The pending ratio is the percentage of homes listed that have a pending sales contract.
Atlanta single family: 18.5% 
Total homes pending: 472
Atlanta condo’s: 16%
Total homes pending: 519
McDonough: 13.6%
Total homes pending: 282
Stockbridge: 13.5%
Total homes pending: 112
Fulton County: 17%
Total homes pending: 2217.
Last year Bryan and I discovered a bunch of old “pendings” in the database from the time when the brokerages around here were switching or doubling up on the GAMLS (Georgia multiple listing service) and the FMLS (first multiple listing service). For a while, many offices in town worked in both MLS systems. The problem is that when the listings sold, they were not changed to sold status in both MLS systems.
So last year Bryan called several agents asking them to clean up their data since it was affecting our statistics (there were approximately 470 old pendings in the system). We also let the GAMLS and the FMLS know what was going on. Some of the agents did clean up the database. However, a couple of large brokerages in Atlanta and McDonough did not and they still have about 260 old pendings in the system. The big problem with this is that it skews our numbers. We thought that 978 of 4078 listings were pending, meaning 24%. In reality, 769 of 3804 listings are pending which is 20%.
We have informed the GAMLS and the FMLS, again, of this problem. Both MLS’s have many rules with penalties and fines for breaking them. However, nothing has been done about this problem yet. No fines have been issued and as far as we know, not even a letter written to this brokerage.
So, from now on we will be posting statistics on a weekly basis so that we can determine the accurate ratios for the Atlanta real estate market. I believe this will take about 6 months or so in order to counter balance the errors in the MLS systems.
Don’t forget you can always get the most up to date statistical information about real estate in Atlanta and surrounding areas on my website. Be sure to sign up for the Market Trends Newsletter.