A lot of people ask us how long it usually takes to sell a home on saskhouses.com compared with selling a home through the MLS system.

The truth is, there really isn’t any way to give an honest answer about how long you should expect your sale to take, because there is no way to actually know, no matter how you decide to sell.

Both the MLS system and saskhouses.com keep track of  “Average Number of Days to Sell” based on the Number of Days on the Market until each Sale is reported, but those numbers don’t include the houses which don’t sell, and there are lots of those. In the past year, for example, more than half of the homes posted on MLS, and on saskhouses.com, did not sell at all. It’s a buyer’s market right now, there is lots to choose from, and while many houses have sold, many others are still on the market.

The most common mistake we see from our sellers is this. Some people tell us they will try saskhouses.com for 2 or 3 weeks, and if it doesn’t sell right away, they will then give it to an agent, so it can be sold quickly.

If it doesn’t sell in that initial 2 or 3 week time frame, we often see the seller move to an agent, and more often than not, lower their asking price. Then, we often see the property sit on the MLS system for months, and sometimes, the seller comes back to saskhouses.com after their MLS listing expires.

We have heard from many sellers that they received a better response from their listing on saskhouses.com than they did from the MLS system. Common complaints we hear are that the Agent only wanted the listing, that they didn’t really do anything to try to find a buyer, didn’t hold any Open Houses, and didn’t communicate about what was happening with the sale with the seller.

When the market is in a frenzy, like it was in 2007 & 2008, sales are fast, and easy. Nowadays, you have to work at it. That means pricing your home right, making sure it shows well, and giving buyers every chance you can to see it. And even then, you will likely have to be patient.

The bottom line is that no one knows how long your home sale is going to take, and that how you decide to sell it, is up to you!