What 'days on market' really tells you about a suburb
It is one of the simplest numbers in property, and one of the most useful, as long as you know what it is counting.
RentBuy Team
3 min read
Days on market is the number of days between a home being listed and the sale being agreed. Averaged across a suburb, it is a quick reading of how easily homes there are selling. Short means buyers are competing; long means sellers are waiting. On RentBuy, agent profiles show the median days on market for each suburb an agent has sold in over the last twelve months.
What a low number means
When the median in a suburb drops below three weeks, homes are typically selling at or before their first scheduled auction, often with several bidders. Buyers in that market need to have finance, inspections and their walk-away price sorted before the first open home. Sellers can price with confidence and keep campaigns short.
What a high number means
When it climbs past six or eight weeks, homes are being listed, price guides are being adjusted and buyers are negotiating. That is a market where a buyer can ask for conditions, and where a seller's first four weeks matter a great deal because interest fades after that. Long days on market are not always bad news for sellers; they can simply reflect a suburb where most sales are by private treaty rather than auction.
What it does not tell you
The median hides the spread. A suburb where half the homes sell in a week and half take three months has the same median as one where everything takes six weeks, and they are very different places to buy. Look at the individual sold results as well as the summary.
It also resets when a home is relisted. A property that was withdrawn after a failed campaign and listed again with a new agent starts its count from zero, which flatters the number a little in suburbs with a lot of relisting.
And it is a lagging indicator. The figure you see today describes sales agreed over the past month or three, so a market that has just turned will not show it yet.
How to use it
Compare a suburb to itself over time rather than to a suburb across town. A jump from three weeks to five in the same suburb is a real change in conditions; a difference between an inner-city apartment market and an outer-suburban house market often is not.
Pair it with clearance rates and the gap between guide and sale price, and you have most of what you need to judge whether it is a buyer's or a seller's market this month.
