Days on Market
How long a home typically sits on the market before going under contract in an area, and how that duration has changed.
On this page
The typical number of days a home spends listed for sale before it goes under contract or is otherwise taken off the market.
realtor.com defines median days on market as "the median number of days property listings spend on the market in a given geography during the specified month (calculated from list date to closing, pending, or off-market date depending on data availability)" (Housing Inventory: Median Days on Market in the United States). realtor.com updated how this is calculated in November 2021 and again in September 2022, improving the handling of duplicate listings; figures from before those changes are not directly comparable with more recent ones.
A shorter time on market generally means homes are selling briskly relative to what is listed — a fast, liquid market. A longer time on market generally means listings are sitting, which this family treats as the less favourable direction: shorter is read as better here.
Metrics in this family#
Days on market
The trailing 12-month average of the median days-on-market figure, in days.
Days on market change, 1 year
The percentage change in that duration over the past year.
Days on market change, 3 year
The percentage change in that duration over the past three years.
Days on market change, 5 year
The percentage change in that duration over the past five years.
Days on market vs seasonal norm
How the current duration compares with the typical duration for this time of year in this same area, rather than with a fixed number of years back.
Considerations#
Duration is seasonal. Homes listed in the depths of winter in much of the country tend to sit longer than homes listed in spring, independent of any underlying change in market conditions. The seasonal-norm reading is offered so a place can be compared against its own typical calendar rather than a fixed year-over-year change.
A market measure, not a per-listing measure. This is the median across all listings that left the market in a given window, not a figure tracked for any individual home. A market with a mix of very fast and very slow sales is represented by its middle case.
Sensitive to how "off market" is counted. The measure spans list date to closing, pending, or off-market date depending on what data is available for a given listing, so the exact endpoint used can differ from one listing to the next.
Small ZIP codes are thin. A ZIP code with only a few sales in a typical month produces a median built from very few observations, which can move sharply from one month to the next on small changes in the mix of what sold.
References#
- 1Housing Inventory: Median Days on Market in the United Stateshttps://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDDAYONMARUS