How Long Will My House Sit On The Market Using A Realtor?

How long does it take to sell a house? It’s a complicated question, because the average time to sell a home depends on your location, the state of your local real estate market, and a variety of other factors.

As of April 2018, the average listing on Zillow sold in 68 days, from listing to close. That means that a home with a typical 30-day close was on the market for roughly a month before accepting an offer.

One interesting point to note is that over the past eight years, as the housing market has recovered from the recession, there has been a dramatic drop in the length of time houses are on the market — the average number of days on the market was 140 days in 2010.

What are the characteristics of a typical home sold in the US?

• The typical home is a 3-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house with 1,800 square feet and a price tag of $200,000.
• 80 percent of the homes sold are single-family homes.
• The remaining 20 percent are townhouses (7 percent), mobile homes (7 percent), condos or co-ops (5 percent), and duplexes or triplexes (2 percent).

Selling a house quickly depends on the market

While 68 days is the national average, the average time it takes to sell a house in your area may differ, depending on your local real estate market and location. For example, rural homes tend to stay on the market for two months longer than urban or suburban homes.

Zillow tracks the number of days that homes are for sale in 262 metropolitan areas. Here’s a list of areas where homes are sold the quickest (between 36 and 45 days), areas where homes sell in roughly two months (around the average of 68 days), and the slowest-moving markets, where it takes four months or more to close a deal. Remember, for any of these markets, if you subtract 30 days of escrow from the total, you’ll see roughly how long they were listed before accepting an offer. Of course, the length of time in escrow varies per sale.

Markets where homes sell the quickest

• San Jose, California (36 days)
• San Francisco, California (38 days)
• Seattle, Washington (38 days)
• Denver, Colorado (42 days)
• Provo, Utah (42 days)
• Salt Lake City, Utah (42 days)
• Ogden, Utah (43 days)
• Colorado Springs, Colorado (44 days)
• Olympia, Washington (44 days)
• Portland, Oregon (45 days)
• Santa Cruz, California (45 days)

Markets where homes sell similarly to the national average

• Akron, Ohio (67.5 days)
• St. Cloud, Minnesota (67.5 days)
• College Station, Texas (68 days)
• Evansville, Indiana (68 days)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin (68 days)
• Iowa City, Iowa (68 days)
• Knoxville, Tennessee (68 days)
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin (68 days)
• Bend, Oregon (68.5 days)
• Columbia, Missouri (68.5 days)
• Janesville, Wisconsin (68.5 days)

Markets where homes sell the slowest

• Peoria, Illinois (136 days)
• New York, New York (137 days)
• Pittsfield, Massachusetts (137 days)
• Syracuse, New York (141 days)
• Champaign-Urbana, Illinois (143 days)
• Torrington, Connecticut (145.5 days)
• Erie, Pennsylvania (146.5 days)
• Scranton, Pennsylvania (149 days)
• Utica, New York (161 days)
• Ocean City, New Jersey (161.5 days)

How can I find out the average days on market for my area?

If you’d like in-depth data on your specific area, visit Zillow Research and download a report for your specific area under “Home Listings and Sales.”

Alternatively, you can ask your agent for their insights, watch the local news for real estate trends, and keep an eye on other listings in your neighborhood. Are they on and off the market quickly, or hosting the same open house weekend after weekend?

How long does each step of the home-selling process take?

There’s more to the selling process than just listing your home, waiting for the perfect offer to come in, and closing the deal. After you’ve done everything to prepare for listing, here are the key milestones of selling, and how long they usually take:

1. 1. List and show (and wait for offers): How long do you need to have your house on the market before you go under contract? If the average length of time an American house sits on the market is 68 days, and you assume a standard 30-day close, that means a home will be available for roughly 38 days before the seller accepts an offer.
   2. Accept an offer: When you receive an offer, it’s courteous to respond as quickly as possible. While actual rules related to response times vary state by state and contract by contract, the buyers submitting the offer will typically include an expiration — 24, 48, or 72 hours after submitting.
   3. Home inspection: Again, this all depends on the contract between buyer and seller. Typically, the buyer has between 5 and 10 days after offer acceptance to complete their home inspection. How long does a home inspection take? The process itself takes only a couple of hours, plus a day or two for the inspector to write up their report. Note that in fast-moving real estate markets, buyers will sometimes waive the inspection to make their offer stand out among other offers.
   4. Counteroffer after home inspection : Based on the findings of the home inspection, buyers often present an adjusted offer or request repairs to be completed. This re-negotiation process usually takes 24 to 48 hours. Hopefully, after the negotiating, you and the buyer have come to an agreed-upon purchase price and the deal can continue.
   5. Closing : As mentioned above, the average time to close on a house is 30 days from the date of mutual acceptance to the day you hand over the keys to the new owner. This gives the buyer’s lender, the title company, and the county records department enough time to complete all the necessary paperwork. If you’re looking to speed up your closing, there are two good options. Sell to an all-cash buyer who can close more quickly, or sell to Zillow Offers. Zillow may buy your house for cash without the need for a traditional listing, streamlining the process and allowing you to close on the date that’s most convenient for you.