Tuesday, July 26, 2011

THE Real Estate Lingo

What is "price/square foot," "list-to-sale price," DOM, CDOM, and all those other slang phrases Realtors use everyday?  Here's a summary for you:

  • Price per Square Foot: This is just the sales price divided by the number of total square feet. This number varies depending on age, location, and finish quality.  This year, the average in Columbia is about $85/sq ft.  Newer homes are closer to the $100-$120 mark and older homes that are in poor condition can be around $50/sq ft. 
  • Sale/List Price Ratio: This is the sales price divided by the list price. It is an indicator of how much homes are selling for in relation to their asking price.  Right now, that ratio is at 96.5%. This means if you have a house listed at $100,000 you can plan on selling it on average at $96,500.  It is an indicator of how much "wiggle room" is in the list price and how negotiable sellers are in the current market.
  • DOM/CDOM:  This is Days on Market and just indicates how long the property has been for sale.  The "C" stands for Cumulative and is an accumulation of the days on market for the same property. So, if the seller listed with another company, or took it off market for a few days for Christmas, etc. it keeps counting the DOM and arrives at CDOM as long as the off-market period was less than 90 days. Columbia's average DOM is 81 days and average CDOM is 115 days for 2011 for sold homes. 
  • Absorption Rate: This is a number, usually in months, that tells how long it would take to sell all homes currently on the market, at the rate they are selling now without adding any additional homes to the market for sale.  As of last month, that number for Columbia was 10.64 months.  Meaning we have about 10 months of inventory right now on the market. 
Any questions? Just ask! Any lingo you want more info on?  Feel free to contact me directly, or comment on my post! JK

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