Lagos coastal homes: is the 35-day figure being distorted by active listings?

C

cooksAndPine

Homeowner
I’m looking at Lagos coastal property listed between NGN 589,000,000 and NGN 883,500,000. My sample points to roughly 35 days to find a buyer, with most of the outliers appearing connected to property-tax issues.

Before treating that as the market pace this month, I’m wondering whether active listings are getting too much weight. Would recent completed deals support 35 days, or should withdrawn stock and relisted homes be counted separately?
 
Completed deals would be more useful, but only if you can match the original listing date to the actual agreement date. Current listings create survivorship bias: the quick sales disappear while the stubborn properties remain visible. I’d split the sample into completed, still active and withdrawn rather than calculate one average across all three.
 
If “coastal” covers unlike parts of Lagos, the 35-day figure could lead you to compare the wrong homes. I’d keep the completed, active and withdrawn categories suggested above, but divide each one by a narrower location and by condition as well. Access, immediate surroundings and buyer pool can differ within a broad search area. A finished home ready for occupation should not share a benchmark with one requiring substantial work merely because their asking prices are similar.
 
I’d be careful about attributing the outliers to property tax. A tax issue may delay a transaction, but it could also be appearing alongside weak documentation, an unrealistic seller or poor property condition. That makes it a correlation in your sample, not necessarily the main cause.
 
A simple cohort table could clarify this. Take properties first listed during the same period, then record original ask, any price-cut date, current status and the point at which a buyer was found where that can be verified. Keep withdrawals visible. Otherwise removing an unsold home can look like a successful exit.
 
Also define “find a buyer.” Is that an accepted offer, money committed, or a completed transfer? Buyer financing can widen the gap between agreement and completion, so completed-sale timing may answer a different question from the 35-day figure.
 
I don’t think completed deals alone settle it. They tell you how long successful listings took, but not the probability of success. If ten properties launch and only the quickest few complete, their timing can look healthy while the rest sit, get withdrawn or return under a fresh listing.
 
New-listing volume is another missing piece. Thirty-five days during a month with a wave of fresh stock does not mean the same thing as 35 days when little new property is coming on. I’d compare the number entering your sample with the number leaving it, without assuming every disappearance was a sale.
 
Price cuts could explain more than the headline average. Separate homes that found buyers at the original ask from those reduced after a few weeks. The useful figure may be “days from effective market price to buyer,” while sellers care about total days from the first, possibly ambitious, asking price.
 
Agreed on price cuts, though I would preserve both clocks rather than replace one with the other. Total exposure measures the seller’s experience; time after reduction says more about demand at the revised price. If relistings reset the clock, flag those manually or the sample will understate exposure.
 
Tariq’s distinction is important. If your data only shows listing status, call the measure days to removal or status change—not days to completed sale. You can still compare cohorts, but the label should not imply a transaction milestone the data cannot confirm.
 
Seller motivation may be the quiet variable here. Two similar homes can behave differently if one seller is prepared to negotiate and the other is anchored to the initial ask. Can you see asking-price changes or only the latest advertised price? Without the history, 35 days lacks context.
 
Is “this month” based on listings that entered the market this month, or everything observed this month? The second group includes older stock and will naturally skew the picture. I’d use entry-month cohorts and allow them time to resolve before comparing completed outcomes.
 
The cleanest conclusion for now is probably narrower: properties in this price band have shown about 35 days in your observed sample, but that is not yet a verified sale-time figure. Next, segment by neighbourhood boundary and condition, retain withdrawn stock, mark relistings and price cuts, and distinguish buyer agreement from completion. Then test whether the property-tax outliers remain outliers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top