Nationwide, the best time to sell a home is March if you're trying to sell quickly, while the best time to maximize profits is July. Zillow recommends listing your home in March, but no later than Labor Day, depending on historical market trends. The spring months are often considered the best month to sell a home. In fact, across the country, the first two weeks of May tend to be the busiest and most lucrative for sellers.
Many consider the summer months to be the peak season for real estate, and for good reason. The uptick in buyers seen by sellers in spring accelerates when the long summer days arrive. The months of May, June and August are the busiest, since those months represent 40% of the annual volume of real estate sales. The zeal to buy a home tends to peak in June, says NAR.
Despite this, buyer traffic tends to decrease in the fall months, suggesting that serious shoppers are staying after the rush of summer. While it may be good to try to time the market, put your home in the perfect month and day for maximum success, the perfect time to sell ultimately depends on your needs as a seller. Returning to the national level, the activity of the real estate market, that is, the number of active advertisements and sales, is cyclical, peaking in late spring and reaching its annual low towards the end of the year. If you look at the average sales-to-sale ratio in a given market, this helps illustrate the degree of competition or demand among buyers in that area.
This statistic measures how long houses stay on the market before they are hired and can change from year to year and even month to month. If you live in an area where summers are very hot, such as Arizona or Nevada, you may find it easier to sell in early spring or even in the fall and winter months. The good news of the summer months is that families often feel the urge to shop and move while their children aren't going to school. And while homeowners who list their homes for sale during the winter months may attract buyers with attractive Christmas decorations, McCoy points out that sellers should keep their home for buyer visits.
However, if you are a homeowner and need to sell your home quickly without waiting until the worst month to sell a home has passed, you may not want to make a traditional home sale. From winter to spring, there are several months throughout the year that generally have less than ideal sales conditions. By posting an ad on Thursday, you can hold open days over the weekend, when shoppers are more likely to be away from home. From the possibility of adjusting school schedules to the possibility of tax refunds, the final consensus is that the spring months represent numerous sales opportunities.
The best time of year to buy a home is during the fall and winter, while the worst time is during the spring and summer months. However, your motivation to sell, along with the time that best suits your situation, ultimately determine the best time of year to list your home and sell it.
