Days on Market is used to understand how long it is taking for property to sell from the time it gets listed on the market to the time it is sold.
It is generally calculated by summing up the days on market for all property sales in a suburb for a particular month and dividing it by the number of sales to produce the average days on market for that month.
For example lets suppose an artificial suburb called Brownsville got 5 sales during the month of March 2024. Shown below is the days on market data for the sale of each property during that month.
33 Hunter Road, Brownsville (listed on 15 January 2024, sold on 15 March 2024) - 60 days on market
19 Brooklyn Street, Brownsville (listed on 2 February 2024, sold on 3 March 2024) - 30 days on market
12 Hybrid Lane, Brownsville (listed 2 March 2024, sold on 12 March 2024) - 10 days on market
18 Mickey Road, Brownsville (listed 18 February 2024, sold 5 March 2024) - 16 days on market
9 Opera Road, Brownsville (listed 29 January 2024, sold on 7 March 2024) - 38 days on market
The days on market average is therefore calculated by summing up the days on market for each sale above, divided by 5.
i.e. Days on Market = (60 + 30 + 10 + 16 + 38) / 5 = 30.8.
This gets rounded up to 31 - the days on market for Brownsville for March 2024 is therefore 31 days.
Days on Market can be an effective way to gauge the supply and demand of property in a suburb, particularly when viewed over a period of time. A low days on market number means that properties are selling quickly in the suburb (high demand), while a high days on market number means properties are selling slowly in the suburb (lower demand).
Low days on market indicates higher potential for immediate growth in the suburb. Days on Market data can be very useful to determine a good time to buy or sell properties in a particular area.
PropertyDirector provides days on market data covering all Australian suburbs from 2019 till now (updated monthly), with the ability to compare multiple suburbs simultaneously.
See below a report showing a comparison of days on market showing how long it's taking for houses to sell in Ultimo, Bellevue Hill, Penrith, and Mount Druitt plotted over a 12-month period from January 2023 to December 2023.
