When Is the Best Time to List Your Home?

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Hint: There's a method to the March Madness.

UPDATE 3/2/16: A low supply of homes on the market has pushed the magic listing window later in spring. Find out more here.

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You’ve heard it before: List your home early in the year. That way, you’ll be ready to close the deal when home sales peak in June. But what exactly does “early in the year” mean?

Based on an analysis of supply, demand and sellers’ outcomes in “Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate,” co-authors Spencer Rascoff and Stan Humphries have revealed the magic window to list your home: mid-March to mid-April. (For those who like sports analogies, think March Madness to The Masters.)

We also went one step further to determine the exact weeks you should list in different parts of the country. Turns out, the best time to list follows weather patterns. In markets with warm climates like Miami, the magic window starts now. But in places with harsh winters like Boston, waiting until mid- to late April is your best bet.

What’s so magical about the magic window? It’s when you’ll sell your home faster and for more money. The data shows homes sold from mid-March to mid-April sell around 15 percent faster and for 2 percent more than the average listing. That’s a national premium worth more than $4,000. And in hot markets like San Francisco, that could mean an extra $22,000 in your pocket!

Out with the old, in with the new

Because the majority of home shoppers now start their search on Zillow or another site refreshed multiple times a day, listings can become old news fast.

As a home seller, your biggest competition is a surge in new homes for sale, pushing yours lower in search results. The largest surge nationally occurs in the last weeks of February and into early March, so if you list your home before then you may quickly become outranked.

Listing your home in late March or early April, however, means you’ll likely bypass this surge.

You want a marriage, not a fling

When you’re looking to sell, you don’t want to attract people who are just looking. You want someone who’s serious about buying.

How do you know if a buyer is serious? One way is to see if they’ve contacted a real estate agent or mortgage broker, signaling they’re ready to take the next step in the home buying process.

Data shows agent and lender contacts build in early April, so this is a good time to put your home on the market if you want to attract serious buyers.

Time is money

In addition to attracting a serious buyer, you likely care about two things: how quickly and how much you sell your home for. Turns out, the two go hand-in-hand.

After Jan. 1, the first significant drop in the time listings typically spend on the market is in late March. This is also when the difference between final sale prices and list prices is highest.

About the author

Catherine Sherman

Catherine Sherman covers the people, places and trends that shape our idea of home.

This is a good hypothesis based on inventory levels which were at a minimal level, and buyers who were looking to buy in the latter part of the year, who were not able to purchase, due to barely enough selection of homes. So, now the Spring home buying spree is starting out, and the ready buyers want to make their move to purchase.

Summer is the month of moving-for families with children, who need to relocate for schools, and more space.

I live in Eugene Oregon. I will be selling my house. When will be the best time to sell my house in my area? Do you have any tips as to the steps I need to take to prepare my house for sales?

you can find a buyer eventually. depends on how long you wish to wait. people waiting and waiting in late 2007 took a bath when they sold in 2008. it all depends on ones circumstances, if your willing to wait years then no doubt someone will probably come along. others have external circumstances, jobs, divorce or simply wanting out of a place because of neighbors that drive you nuts. sometimes mental health, desire to live ones dreams in a new location are worth more than waiting till who knows when to get the right price

how can eft an appraisal to ask the right price on a home and what is needed to sell a home such i have a 2 bedroom full basement home on two acres

what about st louis area when is the bes time to put a house on the market

The word data has come to be used both as a singular and plural noun when used in English, although in its Latin origin it is the plural of datum. In this article, the reference is to more than one set of data; thus, the data shows. A silly thing to have criticized the author over since its usage has become ambiguous.

Here is a link to the American Psychological Association (APA) style blog on the subject:

and an article from The Guardian:

I believe you guys, whether singular or plural, need a life!

The % above Zestimate data is pretty much useless without a comparison to what percentage of homes normally sell above the Zestimate.

My trusted agent, from many years of observation says that the buyer surge in New England can be timed to the blooming of Spring flowers. This agrees with the article, and will help us decide our timing to list.

Of course there are always exceptions. Buyers are people and individuals are not so easy to predict. And each local region has its own quirks. I live in a rural multiple University area, and many sales are made in the summer to close before the school year starts.

Adolph, he is back in town!

Well, one set of anything is singular. But we don’t assume it, probably because in many cases we have special words like a flock, herd, species, or wad of cash. A collection of data can be a database or an analysis or a result, for example. In the case of data, just using it as a plural is fine. “These data show ” is very common in technical articles, but in the popular media it’s probably a lost phrase.

What if it’s just one set of data?

Chicago, Denver, Kansas City and Minneapolis?

Let’s see. 1) My marbles shows the future, or 2) my marbles show the future. I think the plural marbles “show”, but your plural data “shows”. Was there a reference to check out that I missed?

Thanks. I went back and made the correction. I hope I wasn’t judging, but I’m sorry if I was. My mistake for trying to post from a phone while on vacation and about a silly personal hot button issue.

We were warned, and warned again by our agent to lower our price because we had no a/c. Listed in late Spring. Then we waited. Waited. End of summer. Very hot. No a/c. Lower, lower, said the agent. No, hold, we countered. Then the buyer came along, just having finished a Peace Corps tour in Africa. No a/c. No problem. Actually, feels cool. Sale.

Tommy, you are right that “data” is plural; but plural nouns are followed by plural verbs. Check it out.

Thanks for the very useful article. Do you have any data for Custom/Build-to-suit or Spec home sales? I am an architect turned builder and listed my first build-to-suit home for sale late last month – a little too early per your data. I am wondering if I there is a market for un-built homes or if I should start construction and turn it into a spec home.

In the depths of the Great Recession, the petty peculiarities of the rules of English spelling is the last thing we should be worried about. Better that we should be learning Spanish now or maybe Japanese or Chinese. And better that we should be concerned with earning money right now and putting food on our tables.

Stephen Jacobs in Watsonville, California

Tommy, a small but important point: you spelled admittedly incorrectly. Judge not lest….

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