When considering buying a home, the “Active Days on the Market” is a good statistic to find out how a market is doing.  The basic definition of this commonly used real estate terms is that it is the total number of days the house has been advertised on the open market.

When reviewing an entire town like Groton CT or Stonington that has a large set of data, it is useful to know how long an average home will be on the market.  Smaller villages like Lords Point, Groton Long Point, or Mystic, you may not have enough data for accurate information.  From an agent’s perspective, it is important to know for marketing reasons.  From a seller’s prospective, it is important to know in order to know when you should be making marketing changes.  From a buyer’s prospective, it is important to know to determine the demand for a particular home.  When you take the average days on the market for a town and the number of days a current home has been on the market and add in other factors like number of reductions, you should be able to tell if you can be aggressive with your offer or not.  In a market with a very low number of days on the market, it is important to be very aggressive with your offers before someone else makes a bid.  In markets where homes are on the market for a long period of time, the sellers need to be more patient and buyers can possibly be more aggressive with offers, knowing that on average, the likelihood of another offer coming in is lower than in a faster moving market.

There are flaws with this information.  Some communities, like waterfront communities, have a seasonal flow of inventory.  Many homes go on the market in the spring and come off in the fall.  Thus, the new listing resets the clock, keeping the days on the market lower than it actually may be.

For more information about real estate statistics, real estate terms, and market data, talk to your Connecticut Real estate agent.