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1984 v. 2015: The Home Search Over 30 Years

  • February 24th 2016

by UrbanTurf Staff

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1984 v. 2015: The Home Search Over 30 Years: Figure 1

The home buying process has evolved over the years, but a few things have not changed much, according to a recent report.

The Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers report from the National Association of Realtors looked at the length of time and number of properties that a prospective buyer looks at today and over the last 30 years. The report found that homebuyers in 2015 spend about three more weeks looking for a home than they did back in 1987 (ten versus seven), but look at two less properties in-person (ten versus twelve).

Despite a few ups and downs, the thing that has remained most constant over the past three decades is the amount of time that a buyer spends looking for a new home. For most of the 1990s and 2000s, home buyers searched for a median of two months. It wasn’t until 2009-2010 that the search increased to almost three months. Three months was the median until 2014 when the search period dropped back down to ten weeks for the last two years.

Below is a year-by-year breakdown:

1984 v. 2015: The Home Search Over 30 Years: Figure 2

The thumbnail image for this article is a studio unit for sale at 201 Massachusetts Avenue NE.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_35_year_home_search/10911.

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