The typical American listing goes under contract in roughly one to two months, but the number that matters is your own market's median days on market this week, because the same figure that reads as normal in one metro reads as a stalled market in another.
Days on market is the clearest single read on who has the upper hand in a negotiation. It is also the figure most often quoted from a national article when the answer is local, seasonal and changing, which is why we publish ours weekly rather than annually.
How to read the number
Under about two weeks, sellers are choosing between offers and asking for a discount is usually a way to lose the house. Around a month is a market in balance. Past six or eight weeks, the listing has stopped being fresh, the seller has usually had the conversation about price with their agent, and a buyer has room.
The median matters more than the average, because a handful of listings that have been sitting for a year drag an average somewhere no real house lives.
Why the clock lies sometimes
Days on market resets when a listing is withdrawn and relisted, which is a normal and legal tactic to make a stale home look new. It is also invisible on most portals, which show the days since the current listing began rather than since the home first came up for sale.
We keep our own daily snapshot of every listing we track, so a relist does not erase the price history we already recorded. That is the point of holding the history rather than reprinting the feed.
What makes one home sit
In practice it is almost always price, and everything else is the reason the price is wrong: needs work that the photographs do not show, a location the price ignored, a layout that suits fewer people, or a listing that came out in the wrong season and never recovered.
That is useful rather than discouraging. A home sitting for a reason you do not mind, on a busy street you are fine with, or a condition you were going to change anyway, is where a buyer without competition gets paid for their patience.
Questions people ask
Is 30 days on the market a long time?
In most markets it is normal. It only reads as long where the median is under two weeks, and in that kind of market 30 days is usually a signal that something specific is putting buyers off.
Can you negotiate on a house that has been listed a long time?
Yes, and it is the most reliable negotiating position there is. Long days on market plus at least one price cut is the pattern where sellers accept below the asking price most often.
Why do some listings show fewer days than they have been for sale?
Because they were withdrawn and relisted, which restarts the counter on most portals. The price history is the way to see it.