When sizing up a listing, the eye tends to go straight to price, location and square footage. Days on market, however, is an equally important stat when it comes to negotiating and making an offer on a place. It also can serve as a barometer for a neighborhood, indicating if it’s a hot market where properties are selling fast.

Brooklyn Heights is NYC’s fastest-selling neighborhood, with a median of 26 days on the market. (Source: Terry Jin via Flickr Creative Commons)

Across the board, days on market (DOM) varies by neighborhood and there is no clear trend that characterizes the fastest-selling neighborhood in the city. Nonetheless, we looked into the data and ranked most of NYC’s neighborhoods to see which ones came out on top and which ones floundered.

The citywide days on market median is 42 days, but in some neighborhoods it’s as low as 26 days. For example, Carroll Gardens did great, but Tribeca did not.

Tribeca, one of Manhattan’s most coveted neighborhoods, was one of the city’s slowest-selling neighborhoods. (Source: Garrett Cox via Flickr Creative Commons).

Carroll Gardens has a median of 28 days on market, doing far better than uber-trendy Williamsburg, which trailed behind with 36 days on the market.  Also surprising, Ditmas Park had a median of 30 days on market whereas Greenwich Village had a median of 40 days. Clinton Hill had a median of 30.5 days on market but West Chelsea had a median of 58 days on market.

Perhaps most suprising of all is Tribeca’s performance. Without a doubt one of NYC’s most-coveted neighborhoods, Tribeca  turns out to be a slow-selling neighborhood with a median of 69.5 days on the market. Neighborhoods like East New York, Bed-Stuy and Gravesend all performed better.

It goes without saying that larger units with more space and bedrooms will likely be more expensive. The more expensive a house, the more time it may take to find a suitable buyer. That could explain why Tribeca units, which are generally more expensive and considered “luxury,” will take more time than more moderately priced homes in, say, Bed-Stuy.

The East Village was in the top ten of  fastest-selling neighborhoods. (Source: Phillip Kalantzis Cope via Flickr Creative Commons).

Value is another big factor to consider. Take the East Village, Murray Hill, and Greenpoint, for example. These neighborhoods rank high on our list because buyers are often attracted to the more moderately priced housing they find there.

According to StreetEasy data scientist Alan Lightfeldt, “A lower time on market can give us a clue that the inventory there is attractive.”

Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights and Carroll Gardens – all neighborhoods with high stocks of brownstones – are among the fastest-selling neighborhoods. “From this, we can deduce that townhomes tend to be very attractive to buyers,” Lightfeldt says.

And as always, size matters. Buyers are typically attracted to larger properties – especially when there’s an added bonus of good value.  Ditmas Park and Fort Greene tend to have larger units but are listed at prices well below those of multimillion dollar listings that typify Tribeca’s large, open-floor plan lofts.

See below for the complete rankings.