“DOM” (days on market) or “CDOM” (cumulative days on market) are reported on most MLSs, and are often included in market reports by agents, newspapers, and real estate analysts. This is a number that should indicate how quickly the market is moving, and give sellers a general idea of what to expect about the time it will take to sell their home and give buyers an indication of how long they have to “think about it” before writing an offer. In reality, this is almost a completely meaningless number!
Homes in “Backup” status continue to add days on the market.
When a seller has accepted an offer, and the escrow is opened, most agents will keep the home in “backup” status until the contingencies are removed. The standard purchase agreement calls for 17 days for that period to be up, but many times there is still missing information that keeps the buyer from removing all contingencies. It is not uncommon that waiting for appraisals, loan approvals, delivery of homeowner association documents, and negotiation of any repairs can add 30 extra days to the time that the sale remains contingent.
Agents leave the property in “Backup” status until it closes.
Homes in “backup” status continue to show as available on the real estate search sites such as Realtor.com, Trulia, and all the IDX services. This will benefit the listing agent who still wants to generate leads by advertising that home, even though it is essentially gone. A home that received multiple offers on the first day, followed by 5 days of negotiation to get to the “highest & best”, followed by a 60 day escrow will show 66 days on the market!
The time to approve short sales often adds months to the days on the market.
Many agents leave the property in the active status until the lender gets around to approving the sale (or foreclosing.) Even though a property received 14 offers on the first day on the market, when it closes 9 months later, it may show 273 days on the market!
Due to the uselessness of these Days on Market numbers, I have decided to no longer include them in my local market activity reports. If you want to know how many days a particular property took to sell, just give me a call and I’ll look up the details for you!
