Understanding local market trends

Every seller operates in a local market — not the national real estate market the news covers. This episode teaches sellers how to read the data that actually matters for their specific town and price range: active listings vs. pending sales (the supply/demand ratio), average days-on-market trends, the list-price-to-sale-price ratio, and the absorption rate (how many months of inventory exist at current sales pace).

Kathleen explains what these numbers mean for how you should price and how you should negotiate. In a market with two months of inventory, pricing strategy looks different than in a market with five — and the numbers shift town by town in Bergen County, sometimes significantly between neighboring municipalities.

She also covers how to interpret the "comps" your agent pulls — which sales are genuinely comparable and which ones are used selectively to justify an aggressive list price — so you can participate as an informed decision-maker, not just a passive recipient of recommendations.