When a sector is just ticking along as it always has, no one really pays much attention. It is only when things change that people take notice, realising that corrective action might be needed.

This is certainly the case in the property sector, where the few statistics collected are either tightly held by the private sector or are not pieced together to paint a complete picture.

The property sector is buffeted by numerous waves. Some, like the shrinking average family size, are slow, if relentless. Others have a dramatic and nearly immediate impact: a change in building height policy, accession to EU membership, an influx of young foreigners working with i-gaming companies, lower yields on funds and government stocks, fiscal initiatives for first-time buyers and an amnesty on undeclared rentals... All of these affect supply and demand.

Problems arise when the reaction of the market is a knee-jerk one, with everyone jumping on to the bandwagon. This is why we have seen a rapid spike in the number of properties being built, from a few thousand a year, to almost 12,000, and back down again to a few thousand – all in just a decade.

And yet do we really know what is going on?

Take supply. No one needed Mepa figures to know that there was rampant overconstruction but what was being built and where was hard to map out.

Take property prices. Anyone who dared to suggest that there was an oversupply and thousands of vacant prices which might affect prices was shot down by arguments that the situation was different in various segments, and that the vacant properties were not really available for sale.

This is why stakeholders like the Federation of Estate Agents and the Building Industry Consultative Council have long lamented the lack of statistics, but proper research has been hampered by the lack of funds.

Now, Re/Max has analysed its own figures to show the gap between the asking price and eventual selling price, which has dropped from 23 per cent in 2012 to 15.5 per cent last year.

Why is this important? Because for years, the Central Bank of Malta (CBM) has used the advertised price to calculate the property price index, which has always been disputed by stakeholders.

If the gap were stable, then the index would be valid as it would still capture the trends. If the gap changes, however, the index could be widely misleading.

The gap between asking price and selling price could reflect a number of things, from whether the property was valued too high, to how anxious the owner was to sell. The narrower the gap, the more mature and stable the market, as a speculative bubble or owners under pressure from banks would affect both sides of the equation.

Without this information, we cannot determine which most accurately reflects reality: the CBM’s reported rise of seven per cent for 2014, or Eurostat’s report that it was 11 per cent? There are too many methodologies and too little context.

With as complex a market as property, knee-jerk reactions from the supply side are as dangerous as those to control the demand side. Just look at the impact of changing the policy to allow a third floor in two-storey zones.

Proper research should cover not only real estate agency sales but also direct sales and brokered sales, advertised prices and actual prices, time to sell and numerous other indicators.

The excuse has always been that no one is willing to pay for it. Isn’t it about time the policy-maker – government – exerted a little pressure on stakeholders, or coughs up itself?