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Ready to put your home on the market? Sellers may want to wait just a little longer if they want to get top dollar for their abodes. How long, you ask? We’ve got the dates!
Nationally, the best time to list a home is the week of April 10 through April 16, according to Realtor.com®’s fourth annual Best Time To Sell report. (The specific day may vary a bit in different markets.) Sellers typically find strong demand from buyers willing to pay high prices in this week—a big win for those listing their homes.
To come up with the best week to put a home up for sale, Realtor.com’s economics team looked at data from 2018, 2019, and 2021, to figure out a time when prices were high; there was lots of demand from buyers; competition from other sellers was less fierce, and homes were sold quickly. Those factors were combined and averaged together, to come up with the optimum time.
“Sellers listing in mid-April can expect to find relatively high buyer interest, coupled with limited competition from other sellers, that equates to fast-selling homes at top dollar,” says Danielle Hale, the chief economist for Realtor.com®.
Here’s what most home sellers today already know: Those listing homes in reasonably good shape in desirable areas don’t have much to worry about. There is a record low number of homes for sale, leading to surging prices, bidding wars, and offers over asking nationwide.
But sellers who list their homes at the right time of year can expect to get a sale price about 1.4% higher than the average annual list price. Plus, those prices are 10.9% higher than the average sale prices at the beginning of the year.
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The reason for the extra dough is that this is a peak time for buyers scouring the market. Last year, the average home received 29% more views for each listing than average weeks during the rest of the year. And those who looked, liked what they saw. These homes also sold 13.2% faster than in the average week.
This could be largely due to the fact that there are simply fewer homes on the market. In 2021, the inventory of available homes was 12.9% lower during this stretch than in the average week in 2021.
Still, sellers may not see the absolute highest prices for their homes during the week, says Realtor.com’s Hale. But this is the best chance that sellers have to capture still very high prices, with less competition from other sellers, strong buyer demand, and fast sales. Historically, the most profitable time doesn’t arrive until the late spring to summer, when those prices inch a percent or two higher, she says.
“Waiting for peak price could work, but it also tends to increase the competition a seller faces from other listings,” Hale says.
Those higher prices are also often due to larger homes going up for sale in the summer, when the kids are out of school, and families are searching for their next residences.
That’s why Hale recommends that sellers list in mid-April. Homes listed then most likely won’t need a price reduction to attract buyers, particularly if mortgage rates rise so high that buyers are forced to tighten their belts.
Sellers typically need anywhere from two to 12 weeks to get their homes ready to go onto the market. Those not ready to sell yet could look at other weeks too, however. Mid-April may be the best time to sell a home, but it isn’t the only time.
“Traditionally, the springtime is known as the time when tax return money has come in, and the desire to get a home before the summer is high,” says Michael Rehm, a real estate agent in Sacramento, CA. “During the summer, when kids are normally on break, and the schedule is more flexible, sales are also traditionally high.”
The post Attention Home Sellers: Circle This Date as the Best Time of the Year To List Your House appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.