To not be counted as a pending sale any longer a listing must either: a) close b) broken contract, back to an ACTIVE state, or c) be IN CONTRACT for 6+ months w/out an associated closing Actual Sales - actual sales roll in daily as the city register files a transaction. Actual sales volume is delayed by the filing process. A sale that occurs today may not be filed for weeks or months. Sales volume is lagging and reflects the trend of pending sales from 2-4 months prior! In other words:

PENDING SALES IS A LEADING INDICATOR OF FUTURE SALES VOLUME WHICH IS WIDELY USED IN REPORTS AS A BAROMETER OF MARKET CONDITIONS. ACTUAL SALES WILL REFLECT MARKET CONDITIONS THAT EXISTED 4-6 MONTHS PRIOR

The easiest way to visually show you this is a chart that shows UrbanDigs Pending Sales (green line) versus Actual Sales Volume (red line - set to a 90-day lag): I can't explain this more clearly. I report on pending sales trends and the pace of new deal volume for reports on real-time conditions in the Manhattan market. However, quarterly reports and media will focus on 'actual sales' volume as that is the "verify point" for the market. Pending Sales tells us current demand volume at the expense of not knowing a) if the deal will close and b) what that deal price is. Actual sales tells us with confidence deal volume and price discovery at the expense of time; i.e. at a 4-6 month lag (2-3 months from contract signing to closing + the lag for the city to file the sale). This is the reason why reports on UD on real-time conditions will not match reports that are sales based. With the tick up in Pending Sales over the last 2-3 months, we can reliably expect actual sales volume to sustainably rise starting around April that ultimately should power a stronger Q2 report when its released July 1st.