The housing market has changed over the summer. You may be wondering if we are still in a seller’s market?
That depends on the value of your property.
Last week I explained how 50% of all homes sell between $100,000 and $250,000. Only 5% of buyers can afford luxury homes over $500,000.
To see how much competition, you are facing when you sell, take a look at the chart below. It shows the ratio of active listings (at the end of September) over properties sold in the past 3 months (July 1 – Sep 30, 2019).
A larger number indicates more active listings as compared to closed sales. This means fewer buyers are looking to buy homes in these price ranges.
What You Need to Know About Days on Market
When Realtors quote Days on Market (DOM) they usually refer to the number of days it took to get a contract on a house that sold. I will refer to this number as DOM-Sold. In September the average DOM-Sold was 28.
DOM-Sold (red bars) was the lowest in the $150K to $200K price range with only 18 days. In the same price range, the DOM-Active (blue) was 53 days – 3 times as long.
In a higher price bracket – $500K to $600K – the DOM-Sold was at 73, while DOM-Active was 138 days – almost twice as long.
What does this mean for you when you sell?
If you can’t get your home in contract quickly it will sit on the market much longer.
That’s why my initial Marketing Blitz is critical to get motivated buyers into your listing as quickly as possible.
You also must price your home correctly from the start. Most buyers and their agents will not look at overpriced homes, even if you lower the price later.
Listings become “stale” when they’ve been on the MLS for more than a few weeks.