Listed Today, Sold Tomorrow: Days on Market Plummet in Hot Markets
Your neighbor’s “For Sale” sign goes up on Friday; on Monday, it’s under contract. Really?
Really. You’re not imagining things.
Trulia, San Francisco, said as peak home-buying season hits the high-water mark, signs are pointing to another season marked by low inventory, fierce competition, decreased affordability and quick listing turnaround. How quick? The median number of days on the company’s webpage–the number of days between when a listing initially shows up and when it is officially sold–is at a post-recession low of 64 days based on preliminary data on homes sold in April.
Even more striking, said Trulia housing economist Felipe Chacón, “a home is already in some phase of contract and likely no longer available to shoppers for some of that time and, in a typical year, homes sold in June have been on the market the shortest amount of time, meaning things are only likely to keep heating up.”
Key findings of the Trulia analysis:
–List-to-sale time on Trulia fell nine days or 16.9% to 64 days from 77 days a year ago. The median has been down every year since 2010. It’s down 53.3% (from 137 days) since April of 2010.
–The previous record-low was set in July of last year at 71 days. In 2010, the low for the year was 107 and occurred during the months of July and August.
–Trade-up homes are moving the most quickly at 57 days, followed closely by starter homes at 59 days and premium homes at 72 days.
–The markets with listings that have shortest list-to-sale time on Trulia are all in the West while those that have the longest are all in the East.
Over the past eight years, Chacón said, a pretty clear trend emerges. The median list-to-sale time has been in steady decline. This is true across starter, trade up and premium home tiers and across all of the largest 100 metro areas and the nation’s non-metropolitan areas. As of April, the top 10 places where homes are moving the most quickly are all at 45 days or fewer from listing to closing with Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose, Calif., all tied at 36 days. The places with the longest median Days on Trulia include Syracuse, N.Y., Long Island, N.Y., and New York, where homes are active for a median of more than 125 days. Other markets that make up the top 10 in terms of length of Days on Trulia are in Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Trulia said nationally, days that starter and trade-up homes on Trulia seem to track together closely and generally move off the market slightly faster than premium homes. As of April, premium homes were active on Trulia for 13 days more than starter homes and 15 days more than trade-up homes.
“As with many housing market metrics, what this means for you depends on whether you are a buyer or a seller,” Chacón said. “Sellers generally appreciate getting their home sold as quickly as possible, while buyers can benefit from having some breathing room to make decisions and negotiate. Nationally, this makes the trend of home moving faster off the market over the past 8 years tougher and tougher for those looking to buy a home.”
