Time on the market (liggetid) is not a permanent stamp on your home. It is a figure that buyers read and interpret when they see your listing, and it is a figure you can understand and influence yourself. Even a home that has been on the market for a long time can still sell perfectly well. The key is knowing what the figures actually measure.
A home’s time on the market is the number of days it has currently been for sale and is still on the market. The figure goes up by one day every day for as long as the home is available. Selling time (salgstid) is something else: the historical figure for a completed sale, in other words how long it took from when the home was put up for sale until it was sold. One figure describes a situation that is still developing. The other describes a process that has ended.
On Boligsiden (a Danish property portal) you will see two different figures, and they can look very different. Current time on the market (aktuel liggetid) counts only the days the home has been for sale with the current estate agent. Total time on the market (samlet liggetid) is broader: it includes all estate agents over the past three years and the periods when the home was taken off the market. That is why a home can show 40 days in one place and 400 in the other, without either figure being wrong.
Nationally, the average time on the market for detached houses is 334 days, but that figure hides huge local variations. In Herlev Kommune it is 52 days, while in Læsø Kommune it is 598 days.
The market is local, after all. In July 2026, selling times ranged from 71 days in Greater Copenhagen to 171 days in West Jutland, and in Aarhus the average selling time for houses in the fourth quarter of 2025 was 139 days. A national average therefore says far less about your home than the figures for your own area.
Once you know the difference, you can act instead of just getting frustrated. There are concrete steps that change how your home is read, and ways to tell when it makes sense to get a new valuation.
Check the price first: pricing is the most important factor
When your home is not selling, the price is the first place to start. Pricing is the single most important factor and has a knock-on effect on almost everything else: how many people book a viewing, how long the home stays on the market, and how hard buyers negotiate at the end.
A home priced above market value can take longer to sell than one whose price matches the market. Buyers compare it with everything else in the area, and when your home is priced above that level, it gets filtered out before anyone even considers the floors, the layout or the view.
The most expensive choice is often to wait before adjusting. An overpriced home that only has its price reduced after 90 days typically ends up selling for less than if it had been priced correctly from the start. The reason is the stigma of a long time on the market: the more days the listing shows, the more buyers wonder what might be wrong, and the bigger the discount when an offer finally comes in.
The price reduction grows in step with the time on the market, and the curve looks like this.
| Time on the market | Typical price reduction |
|---|---|
| 0-30 days | 0-2% |
| 30-90 days | 2-4% |
| 90-180 days | 4-6% |
| 180-365 days | 6-10% |
| Over 365 days | 10-20% |
The table shows the difference between the asking price and the actual sale price. The longer a home stays on the market, the more room for negotiation buyers feel they have. After six months the price typically starts to come down, and after a year it is a hard position to get out of, because buyers now read the listing as a problem rather than an opportunity.
If you get lots of viewings without a single offer, it is one of the clearest signs that the price is too high, or that several buyers share the same reservations. Go through the agent’s feedback after every viewing and decide whether the price or the strategy needs adjusting. It is far cheaper to change course early than to put off adjusting the price for months.
So consider a new valuation if your home has been on the market for a while without any offers, if there are few viewings, or if the same objections keep coming up. A new valuation checks whether the asking price still matches what the market is actually willing to pay right now. You can get one before the price reduction starts to grow, and before buyers start reading the time on the market as a warning sign.
Update photos, advertising and timing to create fresh interest
Price is the foundation, but there are other things you can change too. How your home is presented, and when it hits the market, determine how many people click through and book a viewing. Together, these levers can restart interest in a home that has stalled.
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90% of buyers decide whether to view a home from the photos alone, so poor photos, or too few of them, are a direct barrier to viewings.
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A professional photographer costs 2.000-4.000 kr. and cuts the time on the market by 10-20% in active markets, while drone photos and video get the home booked for viewings 30-40% faster.
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Go live on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning, and avoid Friday afternoons and Monday mornings. The first 72 hours typically bring in 50-70% of all viewing bookings.
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The season matters a lot: a detached house put up for sale in May typically sells 20-40% faster than the same house in November, and in the peak weeks 24-26 the time on the market is 20-30% below the annual average, with price reductions of just 2-4%.
None of these levers requires you to change anything about the home itself.
Get your home ready, and make viewings easy to book
Every home is read before it is seen, and the way it is prepared helps decide how quickly things move. Home staging typically cuts the time on the market by 15-25 days in an active market, and professional home staging costing 3.000-10.000 kr. can raise the sale price by 50.000-200.000 kr. You get that money back if your home is in a market where there actually are buyers.
If you need to sell your home faster, there are a number of practical steps you can tackle yourself at the weekend:
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Stick to a neutral colour palette on the walls and in the larger pieces of furniture, so the home doesn’t get in the way of the buyer’s own taste.
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Declutter and clean thoroughly, so the rooms look open and inviting.
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Remove personal items such as family photos and children’s drawings, so buyers can picture their own life in the home.
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Trim the garden and make the entrance inviting, so the home feels well kept from the very first impression.
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Clean all the windows, so the light gets in and the rooms feel bigger.
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Fix small faults such as a creaking door, a dripping tap or cracks in the walls, because things like that can otherwise signal that the home hasn’t been looked after.
If your home has had no offers after several weeks, the problem often lies in how easy it is to get in and see it, not in the home itself. Homes that can only be viewed on Saturdays between 10 and 12 sell more slowly than homes with flexible viewing times. So give your agent full flexibility, and adjust your own plans for the first 2-3 weeks, so viewings can be booked when buyers are ready rather than when it suits you.
Consider an off-market sale to test the market without starting your time on the market
Before you put your home on the market properly, you may need to know whether there are any buyers out there at all. An off-market sale (skuffesalg) is one option you could consider.
An off-market sale can be set up free of charge in five minutes. You test interest with no price history whatsoever, and the time on the market doesn’t start running. That is exactly what makes an off-market sale without time on the market appealing: you get a picture of demand without a number of days on the listing that buyers might later read as a warning sign.
You can see straight away how many active buyers match your home. The sale is completely discreet, so neither neighbours, colleagues nor the merely curious can follow along. The clock doesn’t start, and no price history is left behind. If your home hasn’t had any offers so far, an off-market sale can therefore be a good way to test the market before you decide on your next step.
Talk to your agent about whether it makes sense to pursue the specific interest you have had, rather than waiting for something that may never come.
When a new valuation makes sense – and what Brikk’s process looks like
A new valuation checks whether the price you started out with still matches what buyers in your area are actually willing to pay right now. If your home has been on the market for a while without any offers, if there are few viewings, or if the same objections keep cropping up, it is a natural time to have the figures gone over with a fine-tooth comb. The same applies if six months or more have passed and you are starting to notice the price reductions getting bigger.
The most important thing is to get several valuations. Have several agents come and look at your home, so you get a number of independent views on price, expected time on the market and sales strategy to weigh up against each other. Ask the specific question: “What is your average selling time for [type of home] in [neighbourhood] over the last 6 months?” An agent with documented, short selling times in your particular neighbourhood is a strong signal, because it shows how that market has responded to homes like yours. A general national average says very little by comparison.
At Brikk you can get a free, no-obligation valuation, where a local valuation specialist visits you at home. You book the date and time online yourself, so it fits into your everyday life.
What the two packages include
The table below shows what you get in Brikk’s two packages, and what the difference between them is.
| You run the viewings | Your local Brikk agent runs the viewings | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | See Brikk’s current prices | See Brikk’s current prices |
| Photographer | Included | Included |
| Floor plan | Included | Included |
| Advertising on the major portals | Included | Included |
| Sales brochure | Included | Included |
| Dedicated local agent | Included | Included |
| Negotiation | Included | Included |
| Legal responsibility | Included | Included |
| Extra marketing on social media | Included | Included |
| Lock-in period | No lock-in | No lock-in |
The only difference between the two packages is whether you handle the viewings yourself or Brikk does. Everything else is included in both.
Behind the packages is a chain that has sold over 6 billion kr. worth of property and more than 4.000 homes across Denmark. Customer satisfaction stands at 4,6/5 on Trustpilot, and Brikk is co-owned by Coop and a member of Dansk Ejendomsmæglerforening, the Danish estate agents’ association.
The bottom line is that a home that seems to be standing still is rarely a home that can’t be sold. It is usually just priced, presented or timed in a way that doesn’t connect with buyers in your area. Get a new valuation, compare several agents’ proposals and adjust from there. Your first valuation costs you nothing, and you can book it online whenever it suits you.
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