How to tell how long a house has been on the market
Each property site shows it differently. Rightmove shows “Added on” with a date, until a price cut replaces it with “Reduced on”. Zoopla shows a listing date and, on many listings, a full property timeline. OnTheMarket shows short labels like “Added yesterday” or “Added > 14 days”. None of them tells you about earlier listings, so it’s worth asking the agent too.
Site by site
Rightmove
Search results and listings say “Added on” with a date. After a price change they say “Reduced on” with the new date, and the original date is no longer shown. A home that has been re-listed gets a fresh “Added on” date. More detail: how to see when a house was first listed on Rightmove.
Zoopla
Listings show when the home was listed. Many also have a Property timeline with each price change and earlier sales of the same home, which is the most complete history any of the three sites shows.
OnTheMarket
OnTheMarket uses short labels rather than dates: “Added yesterday”, “Reduced today” or “Added > 14 days”. Past two weeks, you can’t tell whether a home was listed last month or last year.
What to ask the agent
- When did it first go on the market, including any earlier listings or other agents?
- Has the price changed? From what, and when?
- Has it been under offer before? Why did that fall through?
- Why is the seller moving, and do they have somewhere to go?
A home that has been on sale for a while isn’t necessarily a problem. It can simply be priced too high, which may give you room to negotiate.
Let Kerblist keep track
Kerblist is a free extension for Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket. It puts “Listed 4 months ago” and “Reduced 2 weeks ago” on every search result, flags homes that have been listed for more than 60 days, marks re-listed homes, and remembers the earliest date it has seen for each one. Save a home and Kerblist keeps it up to date: price changes and “under offer” show up whenever it appears in your searches again.
Days on market, on every search result
Kerblist is free, with no account. It’s coming to the Chrome Web Store this month.
Get KerblistQuestions
How do I know how long a house has been on Rightmove?
Look for “Added on” with a date on the listing or search result. If it says “Reduced on” instead, the home has had a price change and the original date is no longer shown. Check Zoopla’s property timeline, or ask the agent.
What does “Added > 14 days” mean on OnTheMarket?
OnTheMarket shows short labels instead of dates. “Added > 14 days” means the home was listed more than two weeks ago, but not exactly when.
What should I ask the agent?
Ask when it first went on the market including any earlier listings or other agents, whether the price has changed, whether it has been under offer before, and why the seller is moving.