How long does each step of the home-selling process take?

There’s more to the selling process than just listing your home, waiting for the perfect offer to come in, and closing the deal. After you’ve done everything to prepare for the listing, here are the key milestones of selling, and how long they usually take:

• List and show (and wait for offers): How long do you need to have your house on the market before you go under contract? If the average length of time an American house sits on the market is 65-93 days, and you assume a standard 30-day close, that means a home will be available for 1-2 months before you accept an offer.

• Accept an offer: When you receive an offer, it’s courteous to respond as quickly as possible. While actual rules related to response times vary contract by contract, the buyers submitting the offer will typically include an expiration — 24, 48, or 72 hours after submitting.

• Home inspection: Again, this all depends on the contract between buyer and seller. Typically, the buyer has between 5 and 10 days after offer acceptance to complete their home inspection. How long does a home inspection take? The process itself takes only a couple of hours, plus a day or two for the inspector to write up their report. Note that in fast-moving real estate markets, buyers will sometimes waive the inspection to make their offer stand out among other offers.

• Counteroffer after home inspection: Based on the findings of the home inspection, buyers often present an adjusted offer or request repairs to be completed. This re-negotiation process usually takes 24 to 48 hours. Hopefully, after negotiations, you and the buyer have come to an agreed-upon purchase price and the deal can continue.

• Closing: As mentioned above, the average time to close on a house is 30 days from the date of mutual acceptance to the day you hand over the keys to the new owner. This gives the buyer’s lender, the title company, and the county records department enough time to complete all the necessary paperwork. If you’re looking to speed up your closing, there is an option to sell to an all-cash buyer who can close more quickly.

Avoid being the house that sits on the market forever by watching out for these pitfalls:

• Too many days on the market: Buyers are wary of homes that have been on the market for a long time — especially those that go pending and then go back on the active market. Before your listing starts collecting dust, talk to your agent about making a new strategy.

• Priced too high: If you’re not receiving any offers, or if you’re receiving only offers that are far under asking price, it’s possible that your home price is too high. Pricing your home right is a bit of an art form, and it’s worth the extra time and research to find that perfect price.

• Undesirable location: There are plenty of things about your home you can fix, but some things can’t be changed — proximity to the neighbors or round-the-clock highway noise, for example. You may have gotten used to these less-than-ideal conditions over the years, but buyers notice. Make sure your home is priced accordingly.

• The poor condition of the home: If multiple big-ticket items need repairs, your home is going to be harder to sell, and you’re in danger of having a deal fall apart after the inspection. There are a few strategies to consider, like addressing the biggest repairs ahead of time, or lowering the price so that buyers can do improvements on their own.

• Lack of curb appeal: How your home looks from the street is crucial, as it’s the first impression buyers will have. And, if your home looks bad from the outside, buyers might assume the inside of the home is similarly run down and skip a showing. Take a look at your curb appeal with an objective eye and see if you can make any improvements.

• Off-season: In the vast majority of the country, late spring is the best time to list a house, because most buyers are looking. Unsurprisingly, winter is the slowest, because of holidays and weather.

There's an average of 50-65 days to get an offer on the home, however, this varies greatly by location and time of year, so there's no one right answer to how long you'll wait for the first offer.

Your home can be sold in one 1day (as we recently did) if it is priced right and your agent has a unique marketing strategy before it goes on the open market.