Ask any buyer how long a home has been listed, and they’ll immediately look at the “Days on Market.” It’s the most commonly quoted stat in real estate — and one of the most misunderstood.

DOM works like a taxi meter: once the listing goes live, the counter starts. But today’s market is slower, buyers are cautious, and homes naturally take longer to sell. Instead of embracing reality, many listing agents worry that a high DOM number makes the home look stale or suggests something is wrong with it.

So what do they do? They cancel the listing and relist it. New listing number. DOM resets to zero. Sometimes they adjust the price, sometimes they don’t — either way, the clock starts fresh. To the public, it looks like a brand‑new listing, even if it’s been sitting for weeks or months.

TREBB eventually introduced CDOM (Cumulative Days on Market) to expose the real timeline. It’s the number that actually matters.

Smart agents always check the listing history and CDOM before advising clients. DOM alone is a shallow metric that can easily be manipulated. It’s popular, but not reliable.