Ask most anyone which season is the best to sell a home, and likely, with little hesitation they will respond, summer. This stands to reason. Schools are out, giving families a clean break to transfer children to a new area. The weather is much nicer for attracting people to open houses. Many have a starry-eyed, relaxed attitude freeing brain space to dream and plan for change. It can be, with well-laid plans, the perfect time to sell. But is it, the BEST time to sell?
We wanted to know. So, we consulted the data. As a ten year predictive marketing company providing thousands of agents, brokers and enterprise clients with powerful insights on future sellers, this was sure to be an easy task (well at least for our data scientists). Here’s what we found. Take a look, the answers may surprise you.
Data Analyzed
- Home sales during the period of 2014 through 2018
- Average number of days on the market
- Ratio of listing price to final sales price
Data Determined Best and Worst Months to Sell
- Spring is hotter than Summer
- Fall is not a good time to sell. In fact, November doesn’t even show up here
- There’s roughly a 30% better chance to sell a home in the selected month/season than any other time of the year
Spring
Some may find this a surprising result considering the weather and strain leading into this spring. It simply felt, in too many regions as if it would never make the move from lion to lamb. But remember, the data analyzed doesn’t consider only this most recent spring but rather five years running indicating that 2/3rds of the nation could expect the highest sales rates in this season
Summer
This isn’t all bad news If you missed the boat on spring sellers. At least for the 12 states who are likely enjoying their best selling season now and through the next few months. Contributing to high spring and summer selling trends are vacation homes which tend to do better during the warmer months when they are looking their best and summoning the dreamers who simply want and can afford more time off the grid and on the water.
While thousands of data points go into predicting future sellers two factors stand out especially impacting luxury home ownership. For the multi-million dollar homeowners and investors, wealthy self-employed workers, empty nesters and others are feeling the squeeze from Congress imposed limits to property tax deductions and interest on mortgages.
Fall
Data indicators show fall selling season nationally is narrow with two states, Iowa and Indiana, showing potentially high turnover. This could be great news for brokers, agents and especially sellers in these geographies as they can look forward to the selling market benefits including typically higher offers and increased competition over listings when fewer homes for sale.
Winter
Opportunities exist in every state, season and month of the year. Having the knowledge, and insights on who is thinking about selling and the best times to do so will give you a leg up on the competition. Planning your marketing plan and prospecting efforts with that knowledge is just plain smart. Stop guessing and get more listings! Learn more
For more great information from our partners at smartzip, check out their blog!
