Days on Market and Home Sales

In April 2006, the real estate listing service in Massachusetts adopted a new policy that prohibits home sellers from resetting their property’s “days on market” to zero through relisting. We study the effect of this new policy on single-family home sales along the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border, using homes in Rhode Island, which did not change its policy, as the control group. We find that the policy change leads to a relative sale price reduction of around $11,000 for affected homes in Massachusetts. Homes caught in the middle of the policy change are the hardest hit; the sudden release of the cumulative days on market information lowers the average sale price by $21,500. Sellers respond to the new policy by reducing the listing price to shorten their property’s days on market.