Days on market for the typical Baltimore-area home for sale: 98
The typical home for sale in the Baltimore region in July had been sitting on the market for 98 days -- a little over three months.
So says Realtor.com, which released a market-trends report with statistics on homes for sale. Many of the stats we see are for places that have already sold, so it's a change of pace to get a snapshot of the so-called market inventory.
The region's median time-on-market is almost exactly the same as the nation's, which is one day shorter at 97. Several metro areas are at or above 150 days -- five months. Two -- Oakland, Calif. and Denver -- are under 50. (Denver's typical home has been on the market about a month.)
Aggregated days-on-market figures hide a lot of variations, of course. Homes are always coming on, brand-spanking new, their time on market measured in minutes. Others have been languishing for months. Occasionally years.
And the figures don't necessarily reflect how long the wait has been for sellers, since some pull their homes off the market and put them back on later so they can be brand-spanking new all over again from a multiple-listing standpoint.
Average asking price for listings in the Baltimore region, in case you're wondering: $335,000, down 5 percent from a year earlier, according to Realtor.com. The median asking price is substantially lower, $245,000.
On a related note, Realtor.com says the Baltimore area was the 18th most popular for online real estate searches in July. Chicago was No. 1, followed by Las Vegas and -- wait for it -- Detroit. (The typical asking price in Detroit is $95,000.)
But back to days on market: For comparison's sake, I looked up the statistics for home sales in July, which come from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems' stats arm. The average home sold that month changed hands in 114 days.
Thirty percent of the sales went in 30 days or less. Twenty percent sold in six months or more.
If your home is on the market, how long has it been so far?
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Comments
Jamie, I've seen the "delist and relist 90 days later" trick tried a few times. I have yet to see any of those sell. It seems pretty likely the same reasons that made the person unable to sell the first time around are still there the 2nd time around. Either substantial defects in the house, too high of a price, or misrepresentation.
In fact, misrepresentation seems to go hand in hand with the type of people who use this tactic. I'd say 1 in 5 houses we saw while out looking listed an extra bedroom, either by claiming one of the basement rooms or a 1st floor office type room could work as a bedroom.
Anyway, this post is about time on market... and we all know that can be manipulated. They actually reduced it from 180 to 90 days the amount of time you have to wait until your listing is "new" when you relist it. Buyers beware!
Posted by: chappy10 | August 18, 2011 1:10 PM
Thanks for the story, Jamie. The median age of inventory in our reports account for the days a listing is displayed on Realtor.com. It may differ from days on market calculated by the MLS where the listing is posted.
Posted by: Jill Kipnis | August 18, 2011 5:21 PM
Sure, Jill. But the calculation I included in the blog post from the local MLS is for homes that have sold, not homes still on the market -- different sides of the coin. Sorry if that wasn't clear!
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | August 18, 2011 5:24 PM
Jaime-
Your calculation is still erroneous for the points noted above. True, you are using only sold homes BUT, that number does not reflect how many times it was on and off again. Only how long it was on in it's most recent listing.
Posted by: elweedz | August 18, 2011 7:44 PM
That's why I mentioned in the post that the figures -- though they're all we've got -- don't account for people going on/off, on/off, elweedz. (You'll be interested in the link if you haven't followed it already. It goes back to a post from several years ago when the on-offing was made easier.)
While I blog about days on market sometimes, I don't include the stat in news stories (and I certainly don't compare with days on market from, say, 2005, before the rules changed). Here, I can walk it out so people know its limitations.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | August 18, 2011 9:14 PM
Guess i wasnt reading that closely- my bad.
On another note, there was some more good news on the housing market today. They announced that pending home sales dropped 3.5% in July. Looks like more and more of us are going to be able to afford and home as this trend continues. Hang in there folks.
Posted by: elweedz | August 18, 2011 10:07 PM