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Q&A – How Long Should it Take to Sell My Home?

According to the RMLS’s analysis of the 13 county Twin Cities metro area, the average home is selling in 165 days.  But also according to the RMLS, that home is only selling for 91.7% of original list price.

Now I’m not 100% sure on this, but my feeling is that most sellers would prefer to sell their homes faster and for closer to their asking price.

Edina Realty tracks their activity and has another good metric to compare against: the average home Edina Realty sells has had 21 showings.

Based of my activity with both buyers and sellers, I have the following suggested rule of thumb that I recommend if you have done the proper marketing and staging of the home:

Drop your list price $5,000 (under $300k) or $10,000 (over $400k) every time one of these happens:

  • 30 days pass with no offer (45-60 days October through December)
  • 10 showings occur with no offer
  • More than 2 of your 10 closest competitors sell

If you price the house right (or quickly re-price if you were wrong) you will find that buyers are still willing to come forward quickly in this market.  If you’re on the market for 100 days and have reduced your house $5,000 or $10,000, the buyer is going to want to take another $10,000 or $15,000 off simply because “it has been on the market so long.”  If you’re at the right price that much sooner, the buyer isn’t going to think they can or should negotiate that much off the price.

Though the foreclosure and short sale report I just co-authored suggests that “traditional sellers” have not seen as substantial of price declines as what MAAR had previously reported, this is not an excuse for sellers to put their foot down and say they’re going to wait for a buyer to give them their price.  Listings for sale today are actually down slightly over the same time last year and new Pending Sales are down only around 6% from last year… this market is slower, but certainly not dead and the informed seller will find this market to be pretty forgiving if they’re willing to accept reality.

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Disclaimer

TwinCitiesRealEstateBlog.com is not a Multiple Listing Service MLS, nor does it offer MLS access.
This website is a service of Aaron Dickinson of Edina Realty, a broker Participant of the Regional Multiple Listing Service of Minnesota, Inc.