The Cromford Report

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Membership...

Standard membership of The Cromford Report ™ requires a subscription, and provides you with access to detailed data and analytical charts.

Click subscriptions to find out more or sign-up.

The Cromford Report ...

is owned and produced by Cromford Associates LLC, an Arizona limited liability company managed by Mike Orr and based in Mesa AZ.

Mike holds a masters degree in Mathematics from the University of Oxford in England and spent 31 years in the computer industry, working for IBM, Amdahl, Splash Technology and the Santa Cruz Operation. In his most recent positions he was President of Tarantella and CEO of Mobilearia.

He first started investing in real estate in 1976 and left the computer industry to focus on real estate in 2002.

Contact

mike@cromfordreport.com

Subscriptions are for individuals only. There are no office, team or company subscriptions. Each individual who desires access to the Cromford Report requires their own account and an active subscription.

We do offer discounted team, office, group or volume-based rates as long as one payment covers all individually included in these subscriptions. Each person will receive their own unique user name in these cases. Please contact us by email for more details about this.

All use of a single user name by multiple people is expressly prohibited and may lead to immediate termination or suspension of the subscription. IP addresses are tracked to assist with monitoring such usage.

The data may be used by a subscriber to show to their own existing or prospective clients (buyers or sellers). It is not permissible to share it with other real estate professionals, including agents, brokers, title company staff, lenders, appraisers, etc. Each of these need to have their own subscription and must also be members of ARMLS to comply with our ARMLS data license.

If data is shared through a blog or web-site, we recommend that it should be made accessible to your clients only through a sign-in and/or registration system.

Unless they are receiving it as a client from their subscribing real estate agent, non-subscribers are not permitted to access the data. In no circumstances are non-subscribers permitted to share any of the data with anyone else.

All the content of this site is protected copyrighted material with source date 2013.

The data is collected from a number of different sources.

  1. ARMLS data is used for the Active Listings counts and Active Listing Price per Square Foot. ARMLS data is used for the Square Feet of active listings.
  2. Maricopa and Pinal County Recorder deeds and affidavits of value are collected and used to record sales per month and sales prices.
  3. Maricopa and Pinal County Assessor files are used to determine Livable Square Feet for the Price per Square Foot calculation for Sales.
  4. Maricopa and Pinal County notices of trustee sale and trustee deeds are used to create the Foreclosure charts.

Note that ARMLS sales and county record sales are not the same. County records will contain transactions that did not go through MLS. For example, For Sale by Owner (FSBO), Non-MLS auctions, private sales, etc. The majority of new home sales are also done outside MLS. The sales counts from public records will therefore exceed the sales counts from ARMLS.

The ARMLS data is collected and compiled by the Cromford Report (owned by Cromford Associates LLC).

The Maricopa and Pinal county records and assessor files are compiled and transcribed by The Information Market LLC and delivered to the Cromford Report to create the charts.

The original data used to create the charts is obtained from public and county records and obtained under license from the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, Inc (ARMLS). The original source data contains numerous errors (see below). The compilers spend a great deal of time and energy detecting and correcting most errors in order to improve the accuracy of the statistics. However not all errors will be detected. Although the data is believed to be the most accurate that is available, it is not error-free and no guarantee is made as to its accuracy. Cromford Associates LLC, the Information Market LLC and ARMLS expressly disclaim and make no representations or warranties of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory, as to the accuracy of the data used or the merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose.

Almost any type of error can and does occur. Some more common examples:

  1. Homes may be given an incorrect address and therefore be assigned to the wrong county, city or ZIP code.
  2. Living space on ARMLS and on the assessor's database is not always recorded accurately.
  3. Duplicate filings are sometimes made for notices of trustee sale.
  4. Sales prices are not recorded with 100% accuracy on public records.
  5. The close of escrow date by may be incorrect and the sale may therefore be assigned to the wrong month.