How long has a home been listed? What this tells you about the competition
Marnix Hazelhoff
15 March 2026
Reading time 4 minutes
When you have a property in mind, you probably look at the asking price, the photos, and the floor space. But there's one piece of information most buyers overlook, even though it gives you a clear picture of how much competition you're up against: how long has the home been on the market?
28 days: the new normal
The Dutch housing market moves fast. According to the most recent NVM figures for the fourth quarter of 2025, it takes an average of just 28 days for a home to sell, and only detached houses take slightly longer, at an average of 35 days. These aren't the days a home sits on Funda: this is the time between the moment a property is listed and the moment the purchase agreement is signed.
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For context: in the first quarter of 2024, homes were on the market for an average of 70 days. The market has moved considerably faster since then. A home that has been listed for weeks or months is now an outlier, and that's exactly the kind of information that matters when you're a buyer.
What a long listing time tells you
If a home has been on the market significantly longer than the 28-day average, there are a few possible explanations. The asking price may be too high relative to what buyers are willing to pay. There may be visible or less obvious drawbacks to the property. Or the home simply attracts fewer interested parties than comparable homes in the same neighbourhood.
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In all these cases, the competition is likely lower than for a home that just came to market. That gives you more room to negotiate, and less reason to overbid significantly.
The reverse is equally true. A home that was listed just one or two weeks ago is in the hottest phase of its sale. Of all homes listed in a given quarter, nearly half are sold within one month. In those first weeks, most bids land on the table, and competition is at its peak.
Less frenzy, but still fast
The average number of viewings per home dropped from 10.4 to 7.5 over the past year, and the average number of bids fell from 3.7 to 2.8 per property. That may sound like the market is cooling, and compared to the absolute peak, it is. But a home that just hits the market still attracts nearly three competing buyers. Three people, all trying to win.
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At the same time, 40% of buyers still make an offer without a financing contingency. Those buyers carry less uncertainty in their bid, giving them an edge with sellers who want a quick and certain sale. So listing time also says something about the type of buyer still in the running: the longer a home sits, the more likely it is that the earlier, most committed buyers, often those bidding without conditions, have already moved on.
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Use it as one of your signals
Listing time isn't a guarantee. A home can stay on the market longer due to slow decision-making on the seller's side, a niche target audience, or simply bad timing. But combined with data on comparable homes in the area, the average overbid in the neighbourhood, and current market conditions, it gives you a far more complete picture.
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At SlimBieden, we factor all of this into our prediction. That way, you don't just know what the expected winning bid is, you also know how confident you can be in that estimate, and how much extra it costs to buy yourself a little more certainty.
