We found four problems in how we count Indiana housing data. This document explains each one: what was wrong, what we did about it, and how we know the new numbers are closer to the truth.
We rebuilt the full history on the new method, so no chart has a break in it. Every figure in the series is counted the same way.
Every REALTOR® association has a list of counties it serves. If a listing's county was not on that list, we discarded the listing.
The rule was there for a good reason. A home listed in two MLSes should not count twice, and the county list was a rough way of deciding which MLS owned a listing. But it also deleted a lot of listings that were not duplicates at all. When an agent listed a home in a county their association does not serve, that sale simply vanished from our numbers.
This did not happen evenly. Counties in the middle of an association's territory lost almost nothing. Counties on the edges lost a great deal.
We replaced the county rule with real deduplication. We standardize each address, match addresses against each other, and remove a record only when the same property genuinely appears twice. Association boundaries no longer decide whether a listing counts.
Counties that sit well inside a single association's territory should not move at all, because the old rule was not deleting anything there. They do not move.
| County | 2020 | 2022 | 2024 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marion | -0.1% | -0.3% | +0.2% | +0.6% |
| Hamilton | +0.3% | -0.3% | +0.3% | +0.1% |
| Allen | +0.3% | +0.4% | +0.8% | +0.9% |
Less than 1% in any year across seven years. If the new method were disturbing data that was already correct, this is where we would see it.
The counties that gained are the ones on association boundaries, which is exactly where the old rule was deleting records. Union County had been reporting 8 sales in a twelve month period. The real number was 81. Fayette County's median sale price had been reported at $124,950. It was actually $145,900.
Those corrections are large, but they are contained. Of 92 counties, 55 barely move. Six shift their median price by 5% or more, and only Fayette shifts by more than 10%.
Statewide, the medians do not move at all. Median sale price stays at $270,000, days on market at 22, and price per square foot at $157. We recovered about 7% more listings and they look like the market they joined.