Tick Tock…Days On The Market
April 27th, 2009 | categories: Selling Real Estate in Coconut Grove
Calculating how many days a home has been on the market can be a challenge because many times a property will come on the market and go off the market several times before actually selling. The question becomes at what point do you start counting? Lets say that a house came on the market in July of 2008, then was taken off the market for 4 weeks in March, then went back on the market in April and sold within days. What is this home’s official “Days On The Market”? The answer could depend on who you ask.
When I calculate the days on the market I have to make an executive decision about these timing issues. Did the above home really sell within days, or had it been on the market for 8 months. In this example, I would probably say that the home had been on the market for 8 months prior to selling even though it had taken just a few days to sell after it was put back on the market in April.
The MLS is of no help because it only calculates back to the current list date. So if a home comes off the market for even a day or switches realtors, it will start the counting all over again. See the below Property History for a home that recently sold in Coconut Grove. It was on the market since 2007, then it temporarily went off the market for 1 day in February of 2009 yet the MLS still calculated the Days On Market (DOM) as 31 days.
The reason we are writing about “Days On The Market” is that it is almost always one of the first questions I get asked on my listings. Potential buyers who call me directly always want to know how long the house has been listed. I believe they are hoping to gain some insight into the seller’s motivation. They mistakenly believe that if a house has been on the market for a long time, the seller must be more motivated. If the house has just come on the market, I always hear buyers say that the sellers are “not ready yet”. The reality is that in this market, everyone’s house has been on the market for a long time. With so few houses selling and so many for sale, the days on the market is high for everyone.
In my opinion, the number of “days on the market” has absolutely nothing to do with the sellers motivation. If just the fact that they were on the market for a long time meant they were motivated, these houses would probably have sold by now. In fact, sellers who have been constantly chasing the market down are not very motivated in my opinion because they have been able to survive having their house listed for a very long time. In this market, I am finding that new sellers who want to sell quickly price their house correctly from the beginning. The problem they and their realtors are having is that buyers today want to make sure they get a big discount or a great deal. This usually means taking a big bite out of the listing price.
So how do you list your house properly? Tune in later this week.
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