By Mark Hite
President, Greater Chattanooga Association of REALTORS®
It seems that each industry has their own set of abbreviations and acronyms which become part of the lingo for the members, yet are a foreign language to nonmembers. The Real Estate Industry is no different, so today I wanted to take moment to demystify Days on Market
The abbreviation DOM is often used to represent the “Days on Market”, “Time on Market” or simply “how long a property was for sale”. This is a vital statistic used to measure the health of any real estate market, area or region.
In general terms, DOM is a measurement of how long a property was for sale before it received an acceptable offer/agreement to purchase. Another use of DOM is the length of time a property was offered for sale before its listing agreement with a broker expired and it was removed from the market.
One may then ask, why is this statistic important to know for a street, neighborhood or town when you are looking at home values? Very simply, the smaller the days on the market are and their trend up or down, are a reflection of the supply vs. the demand in a given area and where prices are moving.
When a member of the buying public looks at a property that has relatively high DOM vs. the neighborhood average, then they are inclined to assume the property is overpriced for its condition. If they perceive it to be overpriced, then they are more likely to only offer a discounted price or disregard the property all together from consideration.
As technology has advanced and transparency has increased in real estate, the public can even see when a property has expired with one broker and relisted with another. This combined total is generally called Cumulative Days on Market and again affects the perception of value by the buying public.
So the lesson is to consult with an REALTOR® with experience on pricing your property correctly, taking into account the average DOM for your neighborhood and sell it at the list price in a shorter time frame.