Friday, July 17, 2009

DOM: Welcome to a Buyer's Market

I ran the days-on-market for Davis and Weber counties today. It's been several months since I last updated these charts.

The charts show days-on-market for each month in each county. You will notice there is a lot of noise from month to month. To help read the chart better, I inserted a 12 month moving average trend-line.


The bottom line is that we have shifted rapidly to a buyer's market. However, the curves seem to be flattening out which may indicated that the transition from seller's to buyer's market may be over. We may fester in this market mode for some time (likely years) before we see a decrease in DOM and a shift back to a seller's market.

For those interested in fixing and reselling property, this means that buying at "wholesale" prices is very important. Also, terms on financing will be paramount. High interest hard-money terms may eat you alive in this marketplace if you don't buy right.

For everyone else, it means that patience is a virtue and expect the market to take three to four months to sell your home (pristinely clean, well kept, and showable) at a "retail" price.

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