“Selling season” is a term you may be acquainted with when it comes to real estate. The conventional wisdom is that spring and summer are the best times to buy and sell, as that’s when families are making plans with the next school year in mind and there are no major holiday distractions. Also, it’s warmer. The newness of spring, the thaw, the rebirth- all that jazz. Far more houses do sell during these seasons, that’s a fact. But are sellers making more money?
Conventional wisdom doesn’t always stand up to scrutiny, and I’m naturally skeptical of anything that “everyone” is doing because while individuals might tend toward the right decisions, it doesn’t always seem that crowds do. I wanted to take a closer look at sales and sale prices from the last five years to see if people are really getting it right by sticking to “selling season.”
First, the listings:
Well, yeah. Far more homes are being listed in the spring and summer months. We knew this. Things start to ramp up around February or March, stay strong through June, then plateau or gradually dip for the rest of summer and early fall. By October, new listings start to wind down before bottoming out in December. After all, not many people want to sell their houses around Christmas, do they?
This doesn’t answer the question though of whether it’s better to sell during this time or not. It certainly might be more convenient, but will you get the best price when you have all that competition?
Yes, you probably will.
Let’s ignore 2020. I’m not trying to invoke PTSD in anyone, but that was a bad year and a weird time for the real estate market. The other four years had home-price peaks in the summer, although winter of 2021 had a growth spurt (this was when the mad dash started for the last of the low interest rates). So you can look into individual reasons why each year performed the way it did, but the results are the same. More listings and higher sale prices have been the norm, and four of the last five years had home price peaks in the summer.
For the third piece of the puzzle I looked at the days on market averages- how long it took each listing that sold to find its buyer.
The days-on-market data supports the theory that it’s better in the summer, as (again, ignoring 2020), homes spent less time trying to find buyers during those months.
OK, so we’ve seen that more listings come on the market during spring and summer, those sales garner higher prices, and they spend less time on the market. Knowing all this, what’s the plan for you if you’re going to list your house in the fall or winter? Are you just screwed? Of course not.
Houses still sell in the “off”-season. Houses still get good prices. Not all of them- and on average they’ll be lower- but that just means you might have to put in more effort to put your house at the top of the pack. Here are some important things to be thinking about if you’re going to sell during this time:
- Home prep is key. Your home needs to look its best (clean, no clutter, great curb appeal) to attract buyers, who won’t be in the same frenzy that they’re in during spring and summer. They are more apt to take their time to wait for the right one. Ask your Realtor for their take but consider doing a pre-inspection, so you can address any of the minor problems that would show up later.
- Price it right. Pricing it right doesn’t necessarily mean pricing it lower. It does mean you can’t take that flyer on a high price to see if it sticks, then drop if it doesn’t. There’s more risk to that strategy during slower months, when buyers are pickier. Be closer to correct the first time so you don’t have to drop it twice. You never want to be in a spot where you’re (in industry parlance) “chasing the drop”- continually dropping price in hope of finding the buyer. You have one Get Out of Jail Free card here, use it wisely.
- Recognize the market. Don’t freak out if it takes longer to find a buyer. It might. Don’t freak out if you’re not getting as many showings or the open houses aren’t as busy. With fewer buyers out there you’re fishing with a hook, not a net. These last few years have conditioned sellers to expect that selling their house will be a piece of cake. As long as you and your Realtor acknowledge that selling during the slower months may resemble selling during a down market, you’ll be less prone to bad decisions.
Being the big fish in a small pond is the goal when selling during fall or winter. Stand out. Offer the best value proposition. Know your market. Those obviously are important factors during prime selling season as well, but when the buyers are fewer and more selective you have to take it a step up to attract THAT buyer. You’re running a boutique, not a swap meet, but if you’re doing it correctly the right buyer will be there for you.
