Editorial standards and ethics

These standards govern every story on Jeff Crowe CRE News.

Accuracy, fairness and independence

We report what the data shows, and we say when a sample is too small to say more.
Headlines state the finding. No clickbait, no teasers and no headlines the story does not support.
Stories are written in news style: the most important finding first, then supporting detail. We follow AP style for numbers, dates and place names.
News stories are distinct from our market report pages. Reports hold the full tables; stories explain what changed and link to the report as the source.
No one can pay for coverage, review a story before publication or ask to be left out.

How we report data

One source. Closed-sales figures come only from the official monthly FMLS run, aggregated by Jeff Crowe CRE. We never republish figures from other publishers, portals or MLS systems as our own.
The 14th. A month's figures become official on the 14th of the following month, after two weeks of late reporting. Stories are generated only after that run succeeds.
As-of dates. Every story states the run date of its closed-sales figures. Live listing counts, used for months of supply, are point-in-time reads with their own as-of time.
Thresholds. Cities, school districts and ZIP codes get a regular story at 30 or more closings in the month. Neighborhoods need 50 or more closings over 12 months or 12 or more in the last three months. Every county gets a monthly note; thin months are labeled as such.
Months of supply. Live active listings divided by the month's closings. Under 4 months leans toward sellers, 4 to 6 is balanced and over 6 leans toward buyers. Under 3 or over 9 reads strongly.
What the numbers are not. Figures are observed counts, medians and calculated ratios. They are not appraisals or forecasts.

Automation

Each month our own software drafts stories from the official data. It picks the most distinctive change in each place and writes it up using only figures from that run. Every figure in a story appears in its data box. Jeff Crowe reviews drafts before anything is published, and nothing appears until he releases it.

Quotes and sources

Data is attributed to the official FMLS run with its date. The only quotes on this desk come from Jeff Crowe, and only where he has added them. We do not invent quotes or attribute statements to unnamed sources.

Conflicts of interest

Jeff Crowe is a licensed real estate agent (see his author page). Stories do not promote listings, clients or companies, and they do not name other agents or brokerages. Links from a story to listings or reports on this site are labeled as such.

Corrections

Read our corrections policy.