Why this matters
Three things change based on how you read a brief: the offer you write, the price you list at, and how worried (or unworried) you are about market conditions. A reader who confuses ZHVI with median sale price will misjudge how a Birmingham listing should be priced. A reader who confuses days on market with days to pending will under- or over-estimate how fast they need to move on a Plymouth offer. None of these metrics is hard — they just have to be named precisely. Start here.
The home-value metrics
ZHVI — Zillow Home Value Index
A monthly published, smoothed, seasonally-adjusted measure of the typical home value in a region. It includes the full housing stock — every home Zillow can value — not just homes that recently sold. The figure represents the middle of the market (the 35th to 65th percentile of estimated values).
Example: Per Zillow Plymouth, MI, the typical home value (ZHVI) is $395,659 as of the April 2026 release. That doesn't mean every Plymouth home is worth $395,659 — it means a typical (middle-of-the-market) Plymouth home is. A Plymouth home in poor condition could be $250K; a custom estate could be $1.5M.
Median sale price
The middle value when all actual closed sales in a given period are sorted from lowest to highest. Half the sales were above this number; half were below. Median is preferred over average for real estate because a small number of very high or very low sales would distort the average.
Example: The NAR April 2026 national median existing-home price was $417,700. That doesn't tell you what your home is worth — it tells you that across all April 2026 existing-home sales in the United States, half closed above $417,700 and half closed below.
Average (mean) sale price
Total dollar value of all sales in a period, divided by the number of sales. Avoid this metric for real estate. A single luxury sale can move the average meaningfully without telling you anything about the typical market. Median is almost always the better read.
List price
The asking price set by the seller. Note that list price ≠ sale price in most markets. In Michigan in March 2026, per Redfin Michigan, 29.1% of homes sold above list, 24.2% had a price drop, and the rest sold at or near list. The list price is the starting line of a negotiation, not the price of the house.
The pace metrics
Days to pending (DTP)
The number of days between when a home is listed and when it goes "pending" (under contract). This is the cleanest speed signal because it excludes the closing-period delay that follows acceptance.
Example: Per Zillow, Canton, Livonia, Troy, and Rochester all run approximately 5 days to pending right now. Birmingham runs about 13 days, Northville about 12. The five-versus-thirteen-day spread is one of the strongest readings of market tier dynamics in the brief.
Days on market (DOM)
The total days a listing is active — from list to either sale closing, listing expiration, or withdrawal. DOM is broader than DTP because it includes the closing period and the cases where a listing didn't sell. DOM is the metric most often quoted by general media; DTP is the metric professionals use for current speed reads.
Days to close (DTC)
The days between going pending and closing. Typically 30–45 days for conventional financed sales, faster for cash. DTC is mostly a function of lender processing and title work, not market temperature. Don't read market conditions into DTC.
The supply-and-demand metrics
Months of supply (also: months' inventory)
How long it would take to sell every currently-listed home at the current pace of sales, assuming no new listings come on. Calculated as (active listings) ÷ (monthly closed sales).
Rough guide: 1 month or less = tight seller's market. 2–4 months = leaning seller. 5–6 months = balanced. 6+ months = buyer's market. Most Metro Detroit cities ran 1–2 months through early 2026.
Active listings
The count of homes currently for sale at the moment of measurement. Distinct from "new listings" (which is the count of new homes coming on the market in a given period). Both matter; they tell different stories. Active listings = supply on the shelf. New listings = supply being added.
Newly pending listings
The count of homes that moved from "for sale" to "pending" status in a given period. This is the demand-side companion to active listings. When newly pending is rising and active listings are flat, the market is tightening. When newly pending is falling and active listings are rising, the market is softening.
Sale-to-list ratio
The closed sale price divided by the final list price. A ratio above 1.0 means homes are selling above asking on average (heat signal). A ratio at or near 1.0 means homes sell roughly at asking (balanced). Below 1.0 means homes sell below asking on average (price-discovery signal).
The change metrics
YoY — year-over-year
The percent change from the same period one year earlier. This is the most-used change metric in housing because it controls for seasonality — comparing April to April rather than April to March.
Example: Plymouth ZHVI at $395,659 in April 2026, up 12.7% YoY, means it was approximately $351,000 in April 2025. The 12.7% is the YoY change.
MoM — month-over-month
The percent change from the prior month. MoM is more current than YoY but it's noisier — affected by seasonality (April vs. March will look different than April vs. April). Useful for short-term momentum reads; less useful for trend conclusions.
Basis points (bps)
A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percent. 100 basis points = 1%. Used for small changes, mostly to mortgage rates.
Example: Freddie Mac went from 6.36% to 6.51% week-over-week — a 15-bp move. From 6.36% to 6.53% over two weeks — a 17-bp move.
The mortgage-rate metric
Freddie Mac PMMS — Primary Mortgage Market Survey
A weekly published average of 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgage rates, collected from thousands of loan applications. Released every Thursday. The 30-year PMMS rate is the standard reference point for "what mortgage rates are doing."
Example: The May 28, 2026 Freddie Mac release reported the 30-year averaged 6.53% the week ending May 28. That is the canonical "rates this week" number every market brief cites.
The PMMS rate is an average. Your actual quote will be higher or lower depending on credit score, down payment, loan amount, and lender — generally within 25–50 basis points of the PMMS print. Don't treat the PMMS number as the rate you'll personally get.
Putting it together: how to read a typical brief line
A typical city headline in one of the briefs looks like this:
Plymouth · ZHVI: $395,659 · YoY: +12.7% · Days to pending: —
Unpacked: the typical (middle-of-market) Plymouth home is currently estimated at about $395,659 per Zillow's monthly ZHVI release. That's 12.7% higher than the same reading from April 2025. Zillow does not publish a days-to-pending value for Plymouth this period (the dash), so we can't make a speed claim. To say something about Plymouth's pace, we'd need to triangulate from Redfin's Michigan reads or the broader Wayne County figures.
That kind of careful reading is the difference between "Plymouth is hot" (true, but not actionable) and "Plymouth is +12.7% YoY on Zillow ZHVI, second-strongest in the brief, but Zillow doesn't publish current days-to-pending so the pace claim needs a secondary source" (true and actionable).
The two rules I read by
First: every number has a source URL. If a real estate piece quotes a figure without naming where it came from, treat the figure as decorative. The briefs on this site link every number to the public source it came from. That's not formality — it's so you can verify.
Second: the metric and the period have to match. "Plymouth home prices are up 12.7%" is too loose. "Plymouth's ZHVI (typical-home-value benchmark) was up 12.7% year-over-year as of the April 2026 release" is precise. Loose framing is how readers come to wrong conclusions; precise framing is how you make good decisions.
Sources
The metric definitions in this article reflect standard usage as published by: Zillow's ZHVI User Guide, Zillow Research Data, the National Association of REALTORS® Existing-Home Sales methodology, and the Freddie Mac PMMS. Current Metro Detroit examples are drawn from the May 15, May 22, and May 29 daily briefs published on this site.
Related
- Daily Metro Detroit Market Brief: Friday, May 29, 2026 — the current brief, demonstrating these metrics in use
- The Two-Track Spring of 2026 — analytical use of YoY ZHVI across the 19-city footprint
- Southeast Digest Market Speed Index — cities ranked by days to pending
- Daily Brief Archive — all past briefs
The data isn't the answer. The data is the input to the answer. Reading it carefully is the difference between a confident decision and a guess dressed up in statistics.