Are 99 days on market misleading for New York duplexes?

R

rhea.york

Seller
I’m looking at New York duplexes listed between $396,000 and $594,000, and the active sample is taking roughly 99 days to find a buyer. The longest-running listings also tend to have heavier service charges.

Before I treat that as the current market pace, I’d like to compare recent completed sales, withdrawals and price reductions. Completed figures are much harder to find than asking data. Is 99 days meaningful here, or is the active stock giving me a distorted picture?
 
Active listings will usually make the market look slower because the attractive, correctly priced properties leave the sample while stale ones remain. I would not use the 99 days alone. Group listings by original asking price, latest asking price and whether they were withdrawn. Then compare that with recent completions from the same neighbourhood and property condition.
 
One detail creates another question: does “duplex” mean a two-unit building or a two-level apartment? Those properties can attract different buyers and may not present the same financing issues.

I would also narrow the New York sample before relying on 99 days. Draw consistent neighbourhood boundaries, then separate building type, condition and recurring charges. Otherwise nearby but fundamentally different properties may be driving the result.
 
I partly disagree that completed sales should be the main answer. They reflect agreements reached earlier, while active listings show what sellers are trying now. If new-listing volume rose recently, older stock could be competing with a fresh wave of homes. Track both, and note when each price cut happened rather than treating 99 days as one uninterrupted marketing period.
 
That’s fair. Completed sales are backward-looking, but they still reveal whether sellers eventually accepted less than their latest visible asking price. The difficult category is withdrawn stock: some owners may have rejected the market, while others may simply relist. Counting every withdrawal as a failure would be as misleading as ignoring them.
 
Service charges may explain some outliers, but I’d separate the monthly carrying cost from condition. A cheaper duplex needing substantial work can sit for different reasons than a finished one with high recurring charges. Buyer financing matters too: the headline price may fit the range while the total monthly cost does not.
 
A manageable next step would be a small table limited to one tightly defined area. Include listing date, original and current price, first price-cut date, condition, charges, status and any completed price you can verify. Median time may be more useful than an average if a handful of very stale listings are pulling the 99 days upward.
 
I’d also split sellers by apparent motivation where the listing history gives a reasonable clue, without assuming too much. Repeated small reductions suggest a different strategy from one decisive cut. If the same homes remain after meaningful reductions, charges or condition may be the issue; if they move soon afterward, initial pricing was probably carrying more weight.
 
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