If you are getting ready for a first meeting with an agent, you have probably spent a few evenings on the big public real estate sites, reading numbers. Here is what this post will give you: a clear look at why those numbers contradict each other, a plain explanation of what the MLS holds that public sites do not, an honest account of which town level real estate statistics exist for a place like Henrietta and which simply are not published anywhere public, and a short list of things to ask an agent to pull before you decide anything.

No slogans. Just what is knowable and what is not.

Three sites, one month, three different medians

Take the Rochester market for July 2026, the newest month with complete closed sales data. Here is what different public sources published for the same month.

That is a $56,000 spread on the median, and a days on market figure that ranges from about 8 to 51 depending on which tab you have open. Sales volume was just as messy. One source reported volume up 78.6 percent. Another printed 643 homes sold, down from 707.

It gets stranger. Houzeo's own July 2026 page reported a sale to list ratio of 120.57 percent, meaning homes closing well above asking price, alongside 51 median days on market. On the same page, Houzeo publishes the rule of thumb that 45 to 70 days on market indicates a balanced market. So a single page tells you the market is fiercely competitive and balanced at the same time.

This is the core of the MLS data vs Zillow question, and it is not really about Zillow specifically. It is about what these sites are: aggregators pulling feeds on different schedules, with different geographic boundaries, different definitions of a "sale," and different handling of new construction and off market transactions. When the headlines you are reading disagree this much, that is a data quality problem, not evidence that the market turned.

What the MLS holds that public sites do not

The MLS is the database agents input listings into. Public sites receive a slice of it. The parts they usually do not receive, or do not display, are exactly the parts that answer a buyer or seller's real question.

• Original list price and every price change with dates. A house showing "$310,000, 6 days on market" may have launched at $349,000 in May, expired, and relisted. The MLS shows the whole history. Public sites often reset the clock.
• Withdrawn, expired and cancelled listings. Homes that failed to sell disappear from public sites. They are the most useful comparables a seller has, because they mark where the market said no.
• Closed sale price against final list price, per property. This is what a sale to list ratio is built from. Aggregated ratios published publicly are only as good as their geography.
• Concessions and terms. Whether the seller credited closing costs, whether it was cash, whether an appraisal or inspection contingency was waived. Two houses can close at the same number on very different terms.
• Days from list to accepted offer, separate from days to close. These get blended together publicly, which is one reason "days on market" swings so wildly between sites.
• Pending sales right now. The closest thing to a live read on the market, and mostly invisible to the public.

The town level gap, stated honestly

Here is where I want to be specific rather than reassuring. When I went looking for published town level figures for Henrietta, this is what I found and did not find.

• Exists publicly for Henrietta: median sale price, days on market, and active listing counts. Note that public sold data for Henrietta ran only through June 2026, a month behind the broader market.
• Does not exist publicly at town level: months of inventory, new listing counts, and the sale to list ratio. I found no public source publishing these for Henrietta specifically.

So if you want a sale to list ratio for Henrietta, or for West Henrietta, Pittsford, Brighton, Mendon, Rush or Honeoye Falls, an agent has to build it from MLS records. It is not a lookup. It is a query.

One number that was published and that I could verify: 0.33 months of supply for July 2026 at the broader market level. That is very tight. But it is a market level figure, and applying it to a single town, or to a single price band inside that town, is a guess. A three bedroom ranch under $250,000 and a $600,000 house on acreage are not in the same market, even on the same road.

A local brokerage, Elysian Homes, published a post on July 13, 2026 describing conditions as more traditional than the frenzy of recent years. Their follow up on August 5, 2026 described something more useful: a widening split between homes that sell quickly and homes that sit. That split is the thing to understand before you price a house or write an offer, and you cannot see it in a single median.

Watch for the wrong Monroe County

Two traps I hit while researching, both easy for a careful person to fall into.

First, searching for Monroe County housing inventory returns Monroe County, Pennsylvania, in the Poconos. The figures there, including a $318,500 median and 2.8 months of supply, are plausible enough to look like ours. There is also a Town of Monroe in Orange County, New York. Check the state and the county before you trust a chart.

Second, one aggregator listed Henrietta's school district as "Monroe County R-1," which is a district in Missouri. The district serving Henrietta is Rush-Henrietta Central School District. If you are buying partly for a specific district, confirm boundaries with the district office or the New York State Education Department, and confirm the specific address, not the town. Boundaries do not follow town lines neatly.

How to request a CMA, and what to ask for in it

A comparative market analysis is an agent's written estimate of value built from MLS records. Asking for one is normal and free at the consultation stage. The way to make it useful is to specify what you want inside it.

• Sold comparables from the last 90 to 180 days, with original list price, final list price, closed price and all price change dates.
• Expired, withdrawn and cancelled listings in the same range, so you can see the ceiling.
• Current active and pending listings that a buyer would weigh against this house.
• Sale to list ratio calculated for this town and this price band, with the date range and the number of sales it is based on. A ratio from six sales is a hint, not a fact.
• Median days from list to accepted offer, defined clearly, for that same slice.
• Seller concessions on each comparable, where recorded.
• Whatever the agent could not find, named as unavailable rather than substituted with a county number.

Then ask three questions out loud. Which comparables did you leave out, and why? What is the range, not the single number? What would change your estimate by ten thousand dollars in either direction?

What a straight answer sounds like

An agent who says "the market is hot, we should list high" has told you nothing you could not get from a headline. An agent who says "here are nine closed sales, three of them needed roofs, two of them sat 60 days before a price cut, and here is what that means for your kitchen" has actually been inside these houses.

You are also allowed to hear "I do not know yet." I did not publish a mortgage rate figure in this post because I could not verify one against the primary source, and I would rather leave a gap than fill it with something that sounds right.

If you want the Henrietta, Pittsford, Brighton, Mendon, Rush or Honeoye Falls numbers pulled for your street and your price range, with the sources and date ranges shown, book a time with me and bring your questions. No obligation, and you keep the report.

Khem Kadariya

About this data

The figures in this post were compiled from publicly available sources including Houzeo, Movoto, Zillow, FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) and RochesterFirst, along with other public market data. Real estate numbers change quickly, and these were accurate as of August 2026. For current figures on a specific home, street, or town, ask me directly rather than relying on a published average.