What Causes Houses to Have a Long Market Time
- Adam Garrett
- Jul 28, 2025
- 21 min read
Updated: Jul 30, 2025
Here is my opinion on the top 12 causes, in rough order of frequency in 2025 in SE VA, for extended real estate market time. Keep in mind that many of these are interrelated and that doing well with each of the top 6 is essential.
Market time greatly impacts perception of value, regardless of the reason why a property has a long market time, so it's not uncommon for properties that are on the market for a long time to sell below the appraised value. One of the biggest reasons why is that places where buyers look for homes like Zillow factor in the market time into their home estimate of value.
Poor Marketing
In many cases, especially with for-sale-by-owner properties, and also with a significant number of agents' marketing (especially those not listing in the primary Multiple Listing Service of the pertinent city or county), poor marketing can be one of the top causes of a long market time for a house.
I've even seen where an "agent listed" property had less than 1% MLS coverage. The seller likely had no idea that the little they likely paid for such paltry coverage would likely cost them much more than the difference between that amount and a more typical commission rate.
I've also seen where a Richmond agent saw my property for their buyer in Hampton, but didn't see others in the same neighborhood because I had my property listed on the Richmond MLS, but the other agents selling similar properties as mine in the neighborhood didn't.
Example of My Good Marketing:
While I've been involved in a number of above appraisal guarantee scenarios, & some no appraisal scenarios, on one occasion (pictured at the top of this article), a buyer paid my seller 6% above appraisal. The seller took essentially all of my advice on things to do to the home to get it ready, most of which he was able to do himself & with his family. Even the kids helped. It didn't cost them much more than time to get it ready. Once it was ready, we priced it at the peak of the comparable sales in a good time of year to put a home on the market. We received multiple offers, and the offer we chose had the highest appraisal gap coverage among the offers, where a buyer states that they will pay above the appraisal within the offer itself in the event that it doesn't appraise at the contract price. The appraiser thought that I was spot on with my list price, so every bit of that appraisal gap coverage was used up, a 6% appraisal gap. The buyer said that one of the things that they liked about the home was the area, and I have to wonder if my unmatched area photos were a factor in bringing the buyers in the door. The sellers also made the property widely available w/ immediate confirmation possible by combining my use of Showingtime with going on vacation (camping I believe) for the first part of the listing timeframe.
Example of Another Agent's Poor Marketing:
I recall an occasion where I was helping a buyer to purchase a property that was contingent on their current property selling. My client didn't ask me for a referral, and I was afraid about what might happen because of it. Some of my worst fears were realized.
My clients' listing agent was doing a decent amount of business at the time, but their marketing was terrible. They provided minimal feedback on what my client should do to their property to prepare it for photos etc. They didn't have a photographer take professional photos, didn't do aerials, didn't do a Matterport 3-D tour, didn't do area photos, didn't do any video, and what they did do was bad. The wording was horrible with numerous grammatical, spelling, and punctuation problems. The pictures were bad. Various critical elements of the home weren't even shown in pictures.
The property got under contract for less than what it was worth. That contract fell through. I might have stepped on some toes in the process, but with my clients & I exasperated and the time on our contract running out, I ended up providing numerous suggestions on their listing, including re-emphasizing my initial suggestion to the sellers that if the agent didn't want professional pictures that the sellers should purchase them themselves due to their importance. I even provided a completely redone about section that was in the top 1 percentile, I suspect, of what could have been there, vs something from their listing agent that I suspect was in the bottom 10 percentile of what was possible.
Shortly after the new professional pictures were input, even before the wording was changed (the listing agent was likely too embarrassed to make the switch & wouldn't even whare with me the max character count), they got under contract at a higher price than the 1st offer.
That said, there are also occasions where a seller wants to blame it on the agent when it's not the agent/broker at all, especially sellers who are overly focused on "active marketing" rather than primarily focusing on the marketing that gets put together before the home ever goes on the market. I'll share an example in the next section.
Overpricing
Overpricing gets a lot of attention, right along with poor marketing, for good reason. The 2 issues are far more important than any of the other issues in typical circumstances. I've put marketing ahead of overpricing, though, due in part to how low properties tend to sell for (whether for sale by owner or contacted directly by an investor) with off-market purchases in a way that's been described by a study (for investors contacting sellers) as "parasitic purchasing".
Example of Seller Blaming Their Agent (Me) When it was the Price All Along:
On one occasion early in my career, I saw how negative of an impact overpricing had on a sale. The seller had not taken my dad & I's advice on what to do to the home and had wanted to start at an unrealistic price.
While I was relatively early in my career, before my sales career started, I had spent May-January in the marketing department, so I knew a lot more than most newer agents about marketing. My dad, who had sold thousands of homes, was also very involved in the listing. I did a lot of marketing for that home, including acquiring aerials long before aerials became a standard in all of my listings. I did plenty of active marketing including distributing flyers to nearby homes and even into businesses to display them. I did a number of open houses. The property was listed in Virginia Living magazine.
I received 3 offers while representing the seller. I recommended that the seller accept or counter the 3rd offer, which was the highest of the 3. They didn't take my advice. Within 1 month, they passed the listing to another agent, who was one of the top agents in VA at the time. It sat on the market for a year with that agent with more than one price reduction. Roughly a year later, it sold at a sales price 8% lower than the 3rd offer we received.
Example of Low Appraisal:
Most real estate is purchased subject to appraisal. Sometimes an appraiser can say that a contract price is too high & bring down an overpriced listing. On one occasion, I suggested one price that was very close to what it appraised for eventually despite that price being higher than what another appraiser had said it was worth before it was listed. We listed it much higher than what I suggested based on the sellers' preferences & it sat on the market for longer than my median market time because of it. While I've been involved in more than 1 appraisal dispute, & sometimes I'm able to secure an above appraisal guarantee for a seller, in this case, when I was selling the highest-priced non-waterfront property in an area, where nothing in close proximity that wasn't waterfront had sold that high before, I disputed the appraisal price with the appraiser to justify value for my seller to come closer to the contract price. That resulted in an increased value over their initial appraisal and an increased closed price for my seller.
High Pre-Listing Appraisals:
While a seller can greatly benefit from a pre-listing appraisal, sometimes a seller will take it as gospel. They'll want that amount even if the market goes down or even if their agent is surprised by how high it is and warns the seller in advance about potentially needing to lower the cost in the future. It's important to note that 3 pre-listing appraisals by very experienced appraisers can yield 3 very different results, especially if the appraisers are not told what others appraised it at. For niche properties especially, where appraisers will vary the most in values, the appraiser could appraise the property for more than the market will command.
Example of Under-Pricing & Selling Fast Despite Bad Marketing:
There was a property that I helped a buyer purchase early in my career. Despite the listing agent having plenty of experience, the property only had one picture, and it was a bad picture, despite the description being good & making the home sound amazing. The property was in fantastic condition. The property got under contract within 72 hrs. While it would have likely sold for more if it had decent marketing, with a higher number of offering parties, even with relatively bad marketing, it sold quickly.
Closely related to overpricing is the overall price. The highest-value houses in an area will tend to take longer to sell than the median-value houses in an area. The reason why is that the buyer pool is lower. However, many sellers believe that their houses are high-value despite what their agent and prospective buyers say. If you're a seller and your convinced, consider acquiring an appraisal from a licensed appraiser, and if it appraises for what you think it's worth, that should be added to the listing. If it doesn't, consider lowering the price. It's typically much less costly to get a paid appraisal than it is to let a property sit on the market so long that many buyers think it's worth less than it actually is.
Poor Condition or Undesirable Elements
A property with great marketing but in poor condition or even in mostly good condition but with some fatal flaws may fall flat, have major concessions requested, or go under contract more than once, extending the market time.
If a property has repairs that would likely be required by an appraiser in order for a property to get a mortgage, that's one of the top ways that a property can have a long market time if it's not priced accordingly. Properties like that should be marketed at a price that keeps that in mind that is greater than the difference of the cost of the repair and what the home would be priced at if the repair was completed.
A seller I worked with, who had plenty of money but who didn't want to pay someone else to refinish hardwood floors, did a DIY job that looked bad on the edges, where I told him it was important not to have it look like that. He made some improvements, but it still looked like that throughout the listing period. I also advised that he should get the fireplace working with a pro, but he didn't want to incur the cost, so we needed to disclose that in the agent remarks. It had some broken seals on windows, which I told him before listing that he should take care of as well. It sat on the market for 6 months, even with a few substantial price reductions (each of which greatly exceeded the cost of what I told him that was repeated by buyers after listing). That's despite it being in mostly great condition, & very well prepared (in terms of cleanliness) before each showing. It eventually sold to someone who saw it close to the end of the 6 months.
Even if you don't have a long market time while being in poor condition, it could still cost you. On one occasion, I had a property that was marketed well, but where the folks who had been hired to keep a contract on the crawlspace hadn't been doing a very good job even though they had last inspected it the prior year. While we had a multiple offer situation within 48 hrs of it hitting the market, the buyers made heavy concession requests based on the lower of 2 estimates they acquired to correct the numerous issues in the crawlspace. The sellers saw the legitimacy of the issues & conceded (despite me suggesting we get another opinion or 3) to the tune of over 10% of the contract price.
On another occasion, where the sellers didn't have a recent crawlspace inspection & didn't get one prior to listing, when the buyers saw problems in the crawlspace from the home inspection, the buyers simply walked. That extended the market time since it needed to go back on the market and sell for a lower price. While crawlspace inspection timing is a standard element of my seller surveys, not every listing agent even has a seller survey, so they could be caught completely off guard.
Properties in flood zones with required flood insurance for a mortgage and with a crawlspace but without flood vents and without an elevation certificate would typically be best to get both of those in order to reduce the flood insurance costs in the vast majority of cases. While it's ideal to do these as soon as you purchase, if you haven't yet and you're selling, it's not too late.
Even the wrong paint colors can have a very negative impact on a sale. Buyers prefer neutral colors, so the bolder one tends to be, the higher the negative impact it can have. I remember an occupant who was very upset that I wouldn't agree with her about the pink paint needing to go. She was so upset that I refused to concede on my opinion (even though I wasn't mandating that it must happen for me to list it, but I wasn't about to lie to appease her) that she convinced the seller (who she was related to) that I shouldn't be considered as an agent.
Related:
Bad Agent
While every factor mentioned in this article can be influenced by an agent, an agent who is any of the following can have a heavy impact on a sale:
Uninformed (especially inexperienced agents without high related experience nor education)
Apathetic (especially heavily discounted commission agents & in some cases high volume agents). One of my worst experiences with a listing agent when I was representing the buyer was a high-volume & heavily discounted agent. We had to essentially work around the listing agent to get the property to close.
Dishonest, whose dishonesty about the suggested list price or the changes that should be done to the house prior to listing, who demonstrate that they care more about getting the listing than about helping the seller to sell for the highest net profits. Dishonesty can also result in sellers overpromising & underdelivering, though a lot of that can be uncovered prior to hiring by asking for a listing agent's past 5 listing-side sales. As of 7/28/25, the last seller who I interviewed with in person who didn't hire me & who hired another agent who priced it higher, adjusted the price shortly after to be within the range that I had recommended. I suspect that the agent gave them an unrealistic expectation of price to help win the listing agreement.
Slow to respond - if they're frequently slow to respond to their own clients even on brief, easy matters, they're likely even slower to respond to buyer's agents. Also, just because they have Showingtime, it doesn't mean that their response time doesn't matter.
Notice that I didn't include in the above "low-volume agents", while I even included as a possibility within number 2 "high volume agents", though some high volume agents, like my dad, are not apathetic and are good. At the time of this publication, one might even consider me a "low volume agent". That's despite the fact that what I offer sellers, I suspect, is in the top 1% of my market, despite relatively low sales by comparison (9 sales in the past 12 months). In my "best" year (2020) I did 29 sales & over $8,250,000 in volume, in 2021 I did 23 sales & over $6,250,000 in volume, while in the past 365 days, my 9 closings have been a bit over $3,270,000. Between 2022 & now, I've published a few hundred articles, with a few hundred more in draft form, primarily to greatly enhance what I offer buyers and sellers. These each took time, though, and negatively impacted my sales volume in the short term. Don't make the mistake of relying heavily on the bandwagon effect to believe for a moment that just because your current agent doesn't have many sales means that they're a bad agent. When I get agents to fill in for me, it's typically experienced agents who currently don't have very high current volume because they have higher availability & plenty of experience.
Sellers not Abiding by Best Practices
While the seller, like the agent, is interrelated to each component in this list, a great listing agent is more likely to be able to educate a real estate seller in a way that they listen to than a bad listing agent.
Technically, since sellers' decision on listing agent plays an even more vital role than the agent, one could argue that this metric should be higher, but I'm eliminating that decision from the equation of the importance of the seller, thus why I have it below that rather than above.
As my online resources have grown, I've noticed that my clients are more likely to listen to me than they would otherwise. By publishing content like this article & my seller guide, it's easy to fact-check and get more details if a client desires to do so. That helps them to be more confident in the advice that I share. With a bad agent though, i.e. someone who doesn't know what they're doing or who is dishonest (especially those who tell sellers what they want to hear), a seller can go completely blind in the wrong direction to their own detriment.
A listing agent can provide all the best advice in the world, but if the seller doesn't listen to any of it, it's not likely to do much good, and seller, buyers, and agents are likely to be frustrated in the process.
Cleanliness & Pests
Cleaning a house is one of the most cost-effective ways to get a house ready to sell.
I recall an occasion where a seller took my advice to get an initial roach treatment, but refused to take my advice on continued treatment despite me strongly encouraging it & showing them live roaches via video while speaking to them. The home had a long market time, and I recall an occasion where a child pointed out one of the roaches while I was walking the mother and child through the home during an open house. It couldn't have just been that one child who noticed. It would have taken hundreds of dollars to have continued treatment for the absent sellers who were on the other side of the country, but because the sellers refused, they lost thousands.
On another occasion, a seller I represented didn't do any repairs to a property other than securing it, doing pest control treatments for fleas and other pests, removing personal property, and cleaning it up to some degree. While the property didn't sell for what it could have if it had been fixed up, it still sold for substantially more than it would have if nothing had been done to the property prior to listing.
There are a number of occasions where a deal falls through due to termite/wood-destroying organism damage. I remember an occasion where a buyer I represented got out of a deal after the termite/moisture inspector found 10's of thousands of dollars worth of damage. A long market time isn't uncommon at all if something like that is present, and if it is found, and the buyer and seller can't come to terms, it should be disclosed prior to being put back on the market. In some cases, escrow holdbacks can't even be used on termite damage for the repair to occur after closing. If only reno loans and cash is possible for a property, it drastically reduces the buyer pool for a property, meaning a long market time if not priced accordingly & often eventually the low price that it should have been from the beginning, if not lower due to the negative perception of long market time.
Conversely, I've also heard feedback from prospective buyers where their sole positive comment was simply that the house was "clean". That's how important cleanliness can be to people.
Overall Median Market Time
If the median house market time for sales in an area is 100 days, you shouldn't expect it to get under contract in a week unless you have a high volume of positive elements all coming together to make it far superior to other sellers in somewhat similar situations. With a single missing element, i.e. the wrong price or the wrong agent, the statistical likelihood of a quicker than typical market time is slim. The median market timing is technically above number 7 in this list, but since you can't change it, unlike most of the above, I've added it at number 7.
Distressed Property & As-is Sales
As-is Sales - Many buyers don't want to deal with an as-is sale. They want a property that is in good shape, or they want a heavy discount to compensate for the time and funds necessary to fix it up. If that wasn't the case, many "flippers" would be out of business quickly due to the costs involved with buying & selling real estate.
Short Sales - Many buyers don't want to deal with the hassle of a short sale. Some buyers might be willing to go under contract on one, only to walk after months of waiting for the bank to only see little progress or the bank come back with an unrealistic appraisal. If short-sale buyers are relying on a mortgage, and their mortgage company says that repairs are necessary in order for them to close, their mortgage company may or may not allow escrow holdbacks if the sellers are unwilling or unable to complete the repairs themselves and the sellers' bank is unwilling as well. Even if the buyer's bank allows escrow holdbacks, the buyers may or may not be able to pay for one. The buyer's bank may or may not be able to do a renovation loan. A buyer may be unwilling to pay the higher interest rate often inherent in a renovation loan.
Other Examples - Court approval requirements, foreclosures, and a number of other ways that a property might be sold in a distressed fashion may negatively impact the market time.
Negative External Factors
There are a wide variety of factors off the premises of the house itself that can negatively impact a sale. Sometimes you can do something about it and sometimes you can't. Even if it's not "your problem" you can sometimes do more than you'd think, even if it's uncomfortable at times.
Here are some examples:
Loud neighbors (especially above a property in a condo situation & with hard floors without good soundproofing)
Messy neighbors, i.e. trash in their yard or the rear of the property looking like a junkyard. On one occasion, I advised sellers to clean up after their neighbors who had left a high volume of trash on the street in front of their neighbor's house. The property sold quickly. If they hadn't, it may not have. I've had a number of buyers not want to even see a property after I pointed out the mess in the neighbor's yard that I could see from the aerial view online and where the pictures seemed to purposefully not point in that direction.
Being adjacent to non-conforming property, especially that which isn't visually appealing. I once had a property that sat on the market for a long time in part because the comparable sales were very spread out in value where we started in price near the top of the comparable sales with full disclosure to the sellers about the spread & potential for a significantly lower price & in part because we were next door to a commercial area that didn't look good being right next door to a residential area. There was a tire shop diagonally across the street and many cars parked next door. While the sellers considered adding some privacy (i.e. a fence or bushes) to mitigate it, they didn't, and the neighboring properties really hurt the property's value and market time.
Poor Market Timing
A property listed in the wrong time of the year will tend to sit on the market longer, even if other elements are good. December to February tends to be the worst time to list in SE VA.
In the example below, the sellers I represented didn't listen to me on the importance of market timing, and it almost cost them over 5%. They preferred to list in early January despite plenty of flexibility to list later.
On one occasion, sellers were planning to sell their home before moving elsewhere. I recommended that they wait to list in late April or early May, which in their case, they could have done without much trouble. Those who list in that time range in the Hampton Roads market, where they were selling, tend to have seasonally impacted better pictures, less concessions, higher prices, and lower market time due to high demand in that time. They preferred to list in early January, less than a week into the month, despite what I told them about the statistical impact of doing so on their net proceeds etc.
While we had fantastic marketing like my typical, including my typical top 1% area photos, aerials, a Matterport virtual tour of the interior & a good portion of the exterior of the home, we had a paper and digital marketing campaign, had a great property description, open houses, & more, the property was slow to get much foot traffic other than the open houses, where traffic is important, but doesn't mean as much as other times.
We received an offer over 9% below asking price 5 days after listing. One of the issues that the buyer had was that they thought it was a 3 bedroom, not a 4 bedroom, because of the lack of a closet in 1 of the bedrooms. I was able to quickly clarify that a closet wasn't a requirement for a bedroom in VA with a strong reference to back it up. With no other offers in those first few weeks, eventually it went under contract with that same buyers for an amount below what I recommended we concede. The sellers thought that due to the slow foot traffic and low offer, as well as the limited properties that were comparable sales to this home where it was more difficult for me to prove what I thought it was worth, I must have overinflated the value in my list price recommendation. To add insult to injury, the buyers then nitpicked the home inspection, and again, the sellers conceded more than I recommended to get the house closer to closing. The home appraised "at value" of the contract price per the buyer's agent, at a price over 5% below asking price.
The buyer shifted job payment methods mid-contract, making it difficult for the buyer to close. The buyer walked, the sellers collected the earnest money deposit, and we put it back on the market. The sellers asked if we should drop the price when putting it back on the market, and I told them that we shouldn't. They listened to me.
We got it under contract quickly this time since it was mid-March. This time, we received an offer that was more than 1% above asking price but requesting 3% closing cost assistance. While much better than the last offer we received, I recommended that we counter at 1.5% in closing cost assistance, and the sellers and then the buyers agreed. The buyers were more reasonable with concession requests based on home inspection than the prior buyers, & we countered with a credit amount that the buyers accepted that was less than half of what the first buyers agreed to in a seller counter. The home didn't have a problem appraising for the amount that was over 1% above our initial list price. The eventual savings to the sellers was over 5% vs the 1st contract.
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Poor Availability
An agent plays a crucial role in providing availability. While not every area has Showingtime available, for those that do, it can be a fantastic resource to effectively cut out any agent or assistant delay that might occur, and for vacant properties, provide real-time, immediate appointment confirmations even for requests at 2 AM. While other showing services are available, the others I've tested pale in comparison to the effectiveness of Showingtime.
One of my most recent closings where I represented the buyer appraised for over 4.5% above the contract price following a multiple-offer situation. In this case, the listing agent only provided a 2 hour window for 4 total exclusive showings prior to accepting one of the offers. They had a short market time because it was underpriced, but if they had priced it for what it was worth, they may have easily had a very long market time due to the short showing windows allowed. The eventual price could have easily been low due to long market time.
For tenants or owner-occupants who might do something like not allowing showings 9-5 Monday-Friday due to working from home, it would typically be more cost-effective for a seller to pay for a tenant or themselves to have a monthly co-working office than it would be for the tenant to be allowed to occupy all that time in the house. For owner-occupants who work from home but who aren't typically on the phone much, libraries can sometimes be solid free options, especially those with reservable rooms.
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Staging
Empty homes sell for less than staged ones, but bad staging or bad items in a home can have a very negative impact on a sale. I've even been essentially heckled online by folks on Facebook for a house that had too much personal property in it where the sellers didn't want to take my advice on removing the personal property before listing it.
Below is an example of the most unwelcoming sign I've ever had to ask a seller to remove throughout the duration of listing.
Removing highly controversial elements like certain flags, certain books, & certain statues can also be very beneficial. It's best to remove family and friend photos. It's best for prospective buyers to focus on your house, not on your collections, especially if an item is polarizing. It's best to make the home as neutral & welcoming as you can. If a 5-year-old is touring the house with their family, it's important for them not to see something where their parents might want to cover their eyes or skip a room.
Even if you can't afford staging, consider highly functional staging as well as virtual staging.
Negative Occupants
Especially for situations where tenants are in a property, and in some cases even when a home is occupied by the owners, the occupants can also cause a long market time. Some of the worst cases of negative occupants include:
Tenants who are in the process of eviction
Tenants who are late on rent with no lease end date coming up
Tenants who aren't late, but who don't have a lease end date coming up, especially in an area where there is a high percent of owner-occupants.
Tenants can, in some cases, bad-mouth a property, sabotage a home purposefully (i.e., keeping the house messy), and can seek to provide too limited of availability. Some tenants or other occupants may want to stay in the house during showings, which may also have a negative impact, especially those who "hover".
Nonconforming Niche Properties
Some properties have plenty of buyers who might want it for a fair price. Other properties are so niche that only a very limited number of prospective buyers might like it. Niche properties are much more of a factor on market time on commercial/industrial sales than on residential sales, thus why I've added it at the bottom of the list, whereas it would be much closer to the top for non-residential sales.
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