How Long Does It Take to Sell a Commercial Property?

Longer than most owners expect.

A house can sell in weeks. A commercial building usually takes months, and the clock starts before the listing goes live and keeps running after you accept an offer.

Here’s the real timeline, phase by phase.

The Short Answer

A commercial sale moves through three phases:

• Getting ready: pricing, documents, and choosing a broker
• On the market: from listing to an accepted offer
• Under contract: due diligence, financing, and closing

The middle phase is usually the longest. CoStar’s August 2026 Commercial Repeat-Sale Indices put the average time on market for properties for sale at 171 days over the 12 months ending in July 2026, down 1.8% from a year earlier. 

Add preparation before that and closing after it, and many sales run most of a year from start to finish.

Phase 1: Getting Ready

This phase is fully in your control, and it’s where time is cheapest to spend.

• Gather your documents (Article 5)
• Get broker opinions of value (Article 3)
• Pick a broker and sign the listing agreement (Article 6)
• Fix obvious problems, or decide to price around them

Rushing this phase doesn’t save time. It moves the delay to due diligence, where a missing document can cost you the deal.

Phase 2: On the Market

This is where price decides speed.

A building priced on actual NOI and real comps attracts offers. A building priced on hope sits. And sitting has a cost beyond time.

CoStar’s May 2026 release reported that the share of properties withdrawn from the market by discouraged sellers rose to 26.8% in April 2026. That’s roughly one in four listings pulled without a sale. 

What drives time on market:

• Price: the biggest factor, by far
• Property type and condition: specialized or dated buildings have fewer buyers
• Tenant quality and lease length: strong, long leases sell faster
• Location: primary markets usually move faster than small towns
• Visibility: more qualified buyers seeing the listing means more chances for an offer

On visibility, every place your listing appears is another way to reach a buyer. On Hutfin, brokers list commercial properties free, alongside 11,400+ listings from 399 brokerages.

Phase 3: Under Contract to Closing

Accepting an offer isn’t the finish line. It starts a new clock.

Here’s the usual order:

• LOI signed (Article 11 covers this)
• Purchase and sale agreement negotiated and signed
• Due diligence: inspections, leases, estoppels, title, environmental, survey
• Buyer’s financing: appraisal and loan approval
• Closing

The purchase agreement sets the due diligence window and the closing date, so negotiate them carefully. A short window favors you. A long one gives the buyer more time to find reasons to renegotiate.

What Speeds It Up, and What Slows It Down

Here’s an illustrative timeline for the building from Article 2. Your numbers will differ.

• Getting ready: 1 month (assumed)
• On the market: about 6 months, close to CoStar’s 171-day average
• Under contract to closing: 2 to 3 months (assumed)
• Total: about 9 to 10 months

Now add what a delay costs. At an assumed $12,000 a month in carrying costs (debt service, taxes, insurance), every extra three months on the market costs $36,000.

What speeds a sale up:

• Pricing on actual NOI from day one
• A complete document set ready before listing
• Tenants warned early about estoppel certificates
• A buyer paying cash or with financing already lined up

What slows it down:

• Overpricing, then cutting the price later
• Missing documents discovered in due diligence
• Environmental or title surprises
• A buyer whose lender gets cold feet

Recap

• A commercial sale runs in three phases: getting ready, on the market, and under contract
• Average time on market was 171 days over the 12 months ending July 2026, per CoStar
• About one in four listings were pulled by discouraged sellers in April 2026
• Price is the biggest driver of how long a property sits
• Each month of delay has a real carrying cost, so preparation pays

Final Word

You can’t control the market. You can control the price, the paperwork, and the terms of your contract. Get those three right, and you take the most time out of the sale.

See what’s competing with your property right now. Browse commercial listings at hutfin.com.