What Rising Days on Market Really Mean for Your Listing

<p>Every month I pull the local numbers apart and write down what actually changed, not what the national headlines say changed. Market conditions differ street by street, and the figures below are drawn from this area alone.</p><h2>What the data shows</h2><p>Active inventory, median sale price and average days on market are the three figures worth watching together. Any one of them read alone will mislead you.</p><h2>What it means for you</h2><p>Whether you are buying or selling, the practical takeaways are below. Reach out if you want me to run these numbers for your specific street.</p>

<p>My honest read is that we are settling into a balanced market, which is healthier for everyone than the frenzy we spent two years in. Median sale price held roughly flat, which tells me the softening is showing up in negotiation room rather than in headline values. The headline number this month is inventory, which climbed for the third consecutive month and finally gave buyers something to compare against.</p><p>Sellers who priced to the most recent comparable sales rather than to last spring are still moving inside three weeks. If you are buying, the leverage you have today is time and information, and both of those disappear quickly once supply tightens again. Buyers relocating from out of state are still driving demand in the school-adjacent pockets, and that segment has not cooled at all.</p><p>One pattern worth naming is that well-photographed listings are still generating twice the showing requests of comparable homes nearby. I am writing more inspection-contingency credits into deals than at any point in the past two years, and sellers are accepting them. The condition premium has widened noticeably: move-in ready homes are clearing quickly while anything needing work is negotiating hard.</p>