The average market time to sell a home dictates what type of market we are experiencing at any given time. Contrary to what you may think, the real estate market doesn't change dramatically overnight, and each town has its own specific historical market averages. Even subsets of inventory ranges, or areas within towns have their own specific historical averages. What may seem like slow sales in one town on a percentage of housing stock units, may actually be that particular town's average. It all depends on what you compare the statistics to, so it's important to have all of the proper information to get a true feel on the state of the market.
In my general service area of Southwestern Connecticut, average market time as measured in days indicating a steady market is approximately 75-100 days, which favors neither buyers nor sellers. Anything less than that range moves increasingly over to a seller's market, and anything above that range begins the shift into what we would consider a buyers market. So the rule of thumb is that the more average market time for a given town or city, the more likely that town or city is experiencing a buyers market. The less market time as measured in days it takes to sell a home constitutes a sellers market.
Bear in mind that each town has specfiic areas that seem to be immune to widely varying fluctuations in the market. Take a look at any of my weekly town reports published every Tuesday to get a general idea as to what type of market we are experiencing right now- You might be surprised! ( Easton, Fairfield, Norwalk, Trumbull and Westport ) Other towns that I service have quarterly reports on their respective information pages on the left hand side bar of my site.