According to the National Association of REALTORS®, it takes three weeks, on average, to sell a home.
Five years ago, the median number of days on market was 11 weeks.
According to a NAR report, the dwindling housing supply continues to drive up prices and is creating multiple offer situations and bidding wars throughout the country.
“The inventory shortage and the growing economy and job creation has increased the interest in homebuying,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for NAR. “There is just not enough inventory; people need to fight over the few homes available on the market.”
Historically, roughly 1.2 million new homes hit the market every year, he said, and so far this year, only 800,000 have been built. “It’s been below that in prior years, and in the past decade greatly lower than that. Today’s shortage is largely explained by a decade of underproduction.”
For brokers and agents in some hot markets, three weeks seems like forever.
“If we make it three weeks in our market, there is something wrong,” Darlene Umina, a real estate agent in the Boston area, told REALTOR.com. “These days, you know within the first weekend whether the price was right.”
For your clients to be successful, particularly in competitive markets, they need to be prepared with a loan pre-approval letter, know their budget and home must-haves and be ready to dedicate their weekends and evening to touring homes – and battling crowds.
Steve Thayer is the owner of Keller Williams Action Realty in Denver, where home prices have increased by 7 percent over the last year.
According to Thayer, he’s sold more than a dozen homes in less that two weeks so far this year — many of them going after one weekend. He’s also gotten a few blind offers from buyers before they’ve even seen a home.
“One of the challenges in this market is getting to Saturday [for the open house], he said. “People are begging to see the house early and before it’s ready to show.”
