This post automatically updates three useful reports for the Omaha & Council Bluffs Real Estate Market to help evaluate of it is experiencing a buyer or seller’s market.  What is a seller or buyer’s market? Traditional rules of thumb are that a market should have four months of inventory on hand to be in a healthy equilibrium.

That would mean if 100 houses were sold every month in a market, you would have 400 active houses for sale for a neutral market. Less is a sellers market (more buyer demand than seller supply); while more than 400 active houses would be a buyer’s market (more houses for sale than buyer demand).

That’s just a general rule of thumb, and in reality different house classes, locations, styles and more can all experience different levels of supply and demand. These reports give a general idea of trends:

• 12 Month Median Days on Market
• 12 Month Median List Price
• 12 Month Price Reduced Property Count

Are there any trends? If days on market are growing, perhaps the list price is dropping, but most importantly, if the price reduced property count is going up (especially as a percentage of houses on market), the market is probably cooling towards a buyer’s market.

Conversely of course, if median days on market is dropping with list prices going up and price reduction count down, the market is heating up.

There’s more to this of course, depending on your property type and many other factors. However, these reports provided by the St. Louis Fed are very helpful.