Sometimes we write about the ever-important Days On the Market metric in the home sales, and we marvel at just how quickly homes in the Richmond are selling these days.

The median DOM for the neighborhood since January is now down to 12 days, which is–and we cannot emphasize this enough–simply insane.

But while this is interesting, it risks playing into some frankly bad habits in the real estate game: After all, just selling fast isn’t everything.

Some homes, for one reason or another, just need more time, and some listings may miss out on a prospective deal if jumpy sellers or realtors pull them from the market.

Any listing that sticks around for more than a couple of months risks attracting a certain stigma. But again, this isn’t necessarily fair; so to combat this, we’re going to take a few minutes today to celebrate those Richmond area home listings that finally sold after sticking it out for longer than usual–longer than a lot of sellers would have the mettle for.

There aren’t many to choose from; since January only four Richmond home sales on MLS stuck around for longer than 100 days: One in the Inner Richmond, one in Central, and two on Lake Street.

Of those, the two Lake Street deals are the least surprising; both were large properties (one a five-bedroom house, the other six), both were extremely pricy (listing for $9.5 million and $7.38 million, respectively) and both ended up selling as underbids in the end.

The house at 139 24th Avenue took 152 days to sell for $8.25M, and 1751 Lake Street lasted 150 days and landed $6M. Sellers for big-ticket homes tend to be a bit (a bit) more patient about a lingering listing, because after all, there are only so many buyers in the world with that kind of money, so you expect that netting a big fish may take a bit more time.

The other two are a little more surprising: 1308 Anza Street took $1.2M after 147 days, and 791 18th Avenue (a condo) landed $937K after 131.

Again, we should emphasize: It is very, very surprising whenever any SF home sticks around that long: Out of 436 publicly sold homes in the Richmond in 2021, only 11 had more than 100 DOM.

The others all either sold in a hurry or their sellers lost heart and yanked them after a couple of months.

And sometimes pulling a listing and then floating it a few months later is the right call; but not EVERY time. Although certain kinds of would-be housing gurus will get into your ear and try to tell you there’s a magic formula for when and how and how long to list a home, the truth is there is no equation for making a deal. (Indeed, if only life were that simple…)

So, to those dealmakers with the courage and the tenacity to buck trends and stick it out in spite of the doubters, we salute you.

If you’re not sure whether you’d end up being one of those people, well, not to worry: The way homes around here are selling these days, few people get the opportunity to ever really find out.

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