It’s All In the Numbers
One of the key indicators that a regional or local real estate market is relatively healthy is the average time it takes for homes to sell. Known as the ‘days-on-market’ number, as agents we pay close attention to this number. Why? Because not only is it important for sellers to get their house sold and moving on, but it’s part of the equation when we determine whether we’re looking at a sellers or a buyers market, or a balanced market.
Yahoo! Real Estate recently posted a very interesting article about cities where the time it takes to sell a home is significantly lower than the national average of 117 days. Four markets stood out to me:
- Oakland CA – 81 days
- Elmira NY – 74 days
- Seattle WA – 73 days
- San Francisco – 59 days.
What makes this interesting is that these numbers are the average. While there are certainly parts of each city where the days-on-market number are much higher than the average, there are pockets where they must be much lower! Which means prices are at market, buyers are buying and sellers are able to sell in relatively short timeframes.