Days on Market (DOM) Things to Know

Since the market has changed and some homes are languishing on the market, listing agents (seller's representives) face new challenges in marketing properties. I am currently working with a buyer and as we try to determine an accepable offer on a property we are reviewing a lot of information about houses that have sold in the past year and one of the things we are analyzing is How Long was that House on the Market (DOM)? This is where some listing agent's are manipulating the data. When a seller says to them, what are you doing to get my house sold? Often a listing agent will say why dont's we "refresh" the listing. Take if off the market, take new pictures, change some of the wording and put it back on the market. It will appear to be "new to market" to some buyer's who are just starting their search.

That is one way to manipulate a listing? Another is that some houses are really on the market for a year, during the year the listing has expired, and when it is put back on the market the agent lists it as new to market?? The listing also is sent out again to any buyer's who are receiving automatic updates as a new listing, it puts the property front and center, again in the hopes that an agent out there needs this kind of reminder to call their buyer's. They call this marketing, there is some discussion as to whether this is ethical or not? So if you are buying and discussing the length a particular property has been on the market, make sure that you are getting the whole story. I have always maintained that buyer's are smarter than that, seller's want to be proactive without reducing their price. Business Week is running an article on this subject this week. An except from their article:

"Agents are pulling houses off the market and then presenting them as new offerings Real estate agent Ross Simone wasn't attracting any potential buyers for a house in Mechanicsville, Md., that had sat on the market for months, so last November he took action. He pulled the house out of the regional database of active listings and then immediately reinserted it, changing the property ID number used to track properties over time. The result: The house appeared to be hitting the market for the first time. "It's in the best interests of my client [the seller]," Simone said in a November interview. "I started doing it consistently this year. I do it as much as I can.""

"When many homes in an area are re-listed as new, it skews the "average days on market" statistic, making the market look healthier than it really is. For sellers, refreshing a listing can also disguise the fact that the previous listing was at a higher price. Buyers often regard a price cut as a sign of weakness.Whether it's within the local rules or not, the practice of relisting houses to give them a new debut is a symptom of an imbalance in market knowledge."

So ask your agent to make sure they search for history by address to pick up prior information. Yet, another reason to work with a Buyer's Agent. A Seller's Agent or Dual Agent may feel it isn't in the Seller's best interests to expose this information.