"What's the average Days on Market in Denver? That is, how long will it take my house to sell?"

In real estate-speak, "days on market," (abbreviated DOM) means how many days it takes from the day a house goes on the market until the day it goes "under contract" (that is, when a buyer and seller agree on a purchase contract). Of course, after a home goes under contract, there are still a few pesky details to deal with like inspection, appraisal and loan approval which can take another 30-60 days, but the official DOM statistic refers to the date the listing is changed from "Active" to "Under Contract."

I'm asked this question a lot, both in casual conversation (yeah, I'm a fascinating conversationalist) and when I'm formally speaking with a potential home-seller. Obviously, the home-seller wants to know how long it's going to take to sell his home and plan accordingly.

And I SO wish I had an answer for him! Wouldn't it be lovely if I could confidently tell a home-seller that he'll need to plan for a 60-75 day marketing time and a 30-45 day contract period?

But that's just not reality. No, I'm not saying that we can't sell your house in 60-75 days or that a 30-45 day contract period is unrealistic; what I'm saying is that in our Denver real estate market, the average DOM statistic is meaningless. Utterly meaningless.

Here's why.

In the last three months, there have been around 60 homes sell in the $250,000 to $300,000 range in zip codes 80211 and 80212 (Northwest Denver). The lowest DOM of the 60 properties is two days. Yes, TWO days. The highest DOM is 628 Days. Yes, 628.

The AVERAGE Days on Market for this group of properties is 61. However, of the 60 homes, 17 of them sold in less than two weeks. Nine took longer than 100 days to sell. And out of the 60 sold properties, not one of them took exactly 61 days to sell; in fact, only nine were within 10 days of the average DOM of 61.

So, when you're looking at market data, please don't be misled by "averages." A better question to ask is "How can I sell my home in 30 days?" Because, clearly, in our market, that's utterly do-able!

www.CharmingOldDenver.com