This is How Quickly Homes Sell in California’s Hottest Cities

If you’ve dipped your toes into the San Francisco Bay Area housing market, you know it’s sizzling hot. The Bay Area has the fastest turnaround of home sales in not just California, but in the nation.

But what does a fast housing turnaround mean in practice? It means you’ll be up against quite a bit of competition. And hot markets favor cash bids and buyers who can guarantee a quick closing.

We took a look at some of the most popular housing markets in California, and just how quickly homes are getting snapped up. Here’s what we found:

Understanding “days on the market”

Days on the market, or DOM, is a key real estate metric that can help buyers determine how hot a housing market is by seeing how quickly houses get snapped up.

The DOM is measured from the time a property is listed for sale on the multiple listing services (MLS) to the date when the seller has a signed contract for the property.

Nationwide, homes stay on the market for 46 days on average, according to a January 2019 report from the National Association of Realtors. In the luxury market, homes across the country are on the market for an average of 56 days, according to an August 2019 report from the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing.

But in some of the Bay Area’s most competitive markets, homes fly off the market in half that time.

California remains hyper-competitive

We mined July 2019 sales activity data from the California Association of Realtors to discover where homes are selling the quickest in The Golden State.

Overall, single-family homes in the San Francisco Bay Area were only on the market for 29 days, according to the latest figures. That compares to 36 days for houses for sale in the Los Angeles area, 35 days in the Central Coast market, 27 days in the Central Valley, and 41.5 in the Inland Empire.

Average days on the market in California’s 10 hottest cities

Here are the top ten cities where you can see California homes move off the market at breakneck speeds:

1. San Mateo
Days on market: 20
Median home sold price: $1.48 million

2. Santa Clara
Days on market: 22
Median home sold price: $1.15 million

3. Contra Costa
Days on market: 23
Median home sold price: $612,500

4. Fresno
Days on market: 23
Median home sold price: $266,500

5. Alameda
Days on market: 24
Median home sold price: $850,000

6. San Francisco
Days on market: 25
Median home sold price: $1.5 million

7. Sacramento
Days on market: 25
Median home sold price: $364,500

8. San Diego
Days on market: 27
Median home sold price: $618,500

9. Monterey
Days on market: 28
Median home sold price: $640,000

10. Orange County
Days on market: 29.5
Median home sold price: $785,000

Header Image Source: (Jose Rago/ Unsplash)