It depends on your motivation! In our current market as of this writing, we’re in a very strong sellers’ market. That means we have very low supply and high demand. And that means houses in Oakland, Berkeley, and the East Bay are selling like hotcakes.
In my conversation with potential sellers, this question always comes up: How long will it take to sell my house. For most houses in our market, the answer is that a well-prepared, well-priced, and well-marketed property will sell in two weeks or less.
Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to have a house sell before being formally listed on our MLS. That technically means it sold in 0 days. For houses that do hit the market, the internet loves to quote our average days on market, which in Oakland is 23.5 days*. Days on market is the number of days counting from listing the home on the MLS to it going under contract or pending.
I believe there are some more telling stats. Our median days on market in Oakland is 14 days, while our mode (that’s the number that appears most frequently in a dataset) is 13 days.
Roughly two weeks is what a seller can expect for a well-prepared, well-priced, and well-marketed property in Oakland. In fact, about 65% of sellers see their home sell in 18 days or less.
*Days on market statistics come from BridgeMLS for May 1, 2018 – April 30, 2019.
