The length of Time it Takes to Sell a Chico Area Home

The length of time that a home listed for sale in the Chico area remains unsold can be an indicator of the state of the market. As you can see from the chart, while overall the number of days that it has taken for homes to sell in our area has increased 7% over the past 24 months, there have been a series of peaks and valleys in the interim. One factor causing this is the seasonality of the local real estate market. The period of time before and after the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays, in combination with the onset of wet weather conspire to reduce the number of home showings, which in turn lengthens time on the market. Spring and fall show a corresponding shortening of time on the market. The dog days of mid-summer can keep some buyers away but July of 2009 saw shortened marketing times in part thanks to buyer incentives.

The 7% increase noted therefore may not be indicative of the overall trend but more likely demonstrates short term changes in incentives, weather or other factors. Hopefully the introduction of the $6500 existing home-owner tax credit will, by encouraging a new pool of buyers into the market, help reduce the days on market from their recent spike.

In general, pricing homes more than 5% over the sold price of comparable homes will lengthen marketing time. In a depreciating market homes may need to be priced slightly below comparable sales if a short marketing period is desired by the seller.