Months of inventory (absorption) = active listings ÷ monthly sales; 0-4 seller / 4-6 balanced / 6+ buyer (Ontario practitioner framing)

Claim. Months of inventory = active listings ÷ monthly sales. Ontario practitioner heuristics: 0-4 months = seller's market, 4-6 = balanced, 6+ = buyer's market. Most agents "regurgitate what they've heard on the news" rather than run sub-market absorption.

Quote.

"Regurgitate what they've heard on the news."

Source. thevillageguru.com (Ontario practitioner); Bramlett practitioner guide (US but transferable), accessed 2026-06-21.

Confidence. Industry-consensus for the formula and heuristic bands; single-source for the "regurgitate the news" framing.

Caveats. Heuristic thresholds (0-4 / 4-6 / 6+) are convention, not statistical. Sub-market absorption is the affirmative claim — most data sources publish only board-level.

Implication / use. The single cleanest example of "the data is already there; the use is the gap." Combine with TRREB monthly Market Watch — includes "Month's Inventory" (absorption).