The purpose of this paper is to provide information about how long purchasers hold residential property. The paper estimates probability distributions that indicate the likelihood that a property will be sold in each year of ownership.
While half of all purchasers sell their property within 10 years of purchase, there is a long tail of people who hold their properties for substantially longer. The mean purchaser’s holding period is about twice as long as the median.
Our estimates include separate distributions for owner-occupiers and investors, as well as the combined distribution for all purchasers.
