Summer has arrived in Fairfax County VA-hot, humid and hazy. Our market continues to be unpredictable and a recent check of the MLS shows that the days on market for some homes continues to climb. Currently in Fairfax County there are 4376 active detached homes on the market. A quick check of the same group of homes shows that 1549 of those homes have been on the market for 90 or more days. WOW that is a lot of homes that are waiting in the que to be sold. So then I decided to check my research (elementary that it is) and see how it looked against our two local experts.
The first place I looked was the MRIS reports provided for all subscribers to the system. I looked at detached homes in Fairfax County for May 2007 and the report indicates that the avg days on market is just under 80 days.
Then I wandered over to the local NVAR site to see the May housing report. According to the NVAR their statistics are compiled from the MRIS. So I anticipated that the days on market dates would be the same. Instead I found what I think is a signficant difference. Instead of 80 days they show an average of 101 days.
Now again I'm not a statistician but I think that a difference in two local reports of 20 plus days is not insignificant. So it appears that if I average the numbers between the two experts I can still say that the average sales cycle for a detached home in Fairfax County is still hovering around 90 days.
I'm sure that if I keep digging I will come up with at least a dozen other sets of numbers for the same set of homes. To me it just seems to be a part of the continued confusion on how the market in our local area is doing and how we can interpret the same data in a number of ways. The bottom line for me is to continue to set realistic expectations for my sellers and then work hard to make their home one of the ones with the SOLD sign in the yard.
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