by Calculated Risk on 4/24/2020 12:59:00 PM

Housing economist Tom Lawler sent me the following:

From Jeff Tucker at Zillow Economic Research Early Data Point to Slight Housing Turnaround After Initial Coronavirus Pullback (March 2020 Market Report)

“Zillow Economic Research is piloting three new daily metrics — daily new active listings, daily new pending listings and daily median list price — in an effort to bolster our usual monthly data and provide more timely signals about the housing market during this unprecedented health and economic crisis.”

The charts Zillow shows do not show levels, but show year-over-year % changes. While the data are daily, it would appear as if each data point reflects a “rolling week,” or rolling 7-day average.

The definition of pending sales is “(t)he number of listings on Zillow that switch from active to pending status each day,” I’m not positive, but I do not believe this definition will reflect cancellations.

Assuming the data reflect rolling 7-day averages, here are some data from the chart on pending sales.

Week Ending:	YOY % Change in Pending Sales (Zillow)
4/19/20	-32%
4/12/20	-37%
4/5/20	-34%
3/29/20	-23%
3/22/20	-1%
3/15/20	17%
3/8/20	18%
3/1/20	26%