The Problem with Market Statistics - Garbage In, Garbage Out

Roaming around the internet this morning I wandered over to Yahoo to check out their Real Estate Section. I thought I would check out what they have on their site for Scarsdale, New York so I punched it into their search and voila up came 278 "home for sale". Then I wandered over to Zillow and put in the same search and voila up came 414 properties for Scarsdale. How can that be? So on the Zillow site I looked at some of the properties listed for Scarsdale and they had properties in Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Eastchester all included even though these properties have different zip codes. Interesteing. So I went over to Trulia and punched in Scarsdale, New York again and got a completely different number - 314.

I got curious and thought I would check out who is right. What is the correct number of properties on the market for Scarsdale, New York. I went to the Westchester - Putnam Multiple Listing Service and no one is right. The problem is that none of these sites explains what is included and what is not included in their numbers.

From the MLS for the Scarsdale zip (10583) there are 289 active listings, 191 single family homes, 29 condo, 68 c-op and 1 multi family. This did not include rentals of which when included brings the total properties to 372.

For the Scarsdale School District there are 190 active single family homes, 6 condo's, 4 co-op;s, and 47 rentals.

For Scarsdale Village there are 150 active single family homes, 103 single family, 6 condo, 3 co-op and 38 rentals.

Scarsdale is both a Town and a Village so for the Town there are 184 single family homes, 128 single family, 6 condo's, 4 co-op's and 46 rentals.

Market statistics are not easy to get right and you can't assume that any one site is right or wrong - who knows?