When is the "Best" time to sell your home?

Probably the question I get asked the most is “when should we put our house on the market?” or “when is the best time of year to sell?” I usually answer about April 1st or about when the snow melts every year, depending on the weather. You don’t want to put your house on the market right when we are getting a late season snow storm but that is historically what I would say. I decided to look at the data and see if we an get a little more scientific.

I looked at the closing dates for single family homes in Washington County. Townhomes would be different because generally they aren’t as affected by the school year so its a little different for them, but I still think relevant. Here is the data:

2019 Month of Closing

• January 155

• February 168

• March 210

• April 256

• May 284

• June 431

• July 363

• August 442

• September 340

• October 297

• November 304

• December 273

And we have to make a quick assumption that if the closings happened in these months the sales happened 45-60 days prior, so lets say 2 months to make it easy. Because the buyer wasn’t found in the month of closing, what we are trying to figure out is when the most buyers where out in the market buying homes. So, take this data and the month with the most closings and then subtract 2 months and we have our answer.

Interestingly, August is the winner by a slight margin over June so that means June is slightly a better time to put your home on the market than April.

A few more insights:

June-August are definitely the busiest months for closings, so April - June is the best time to sell your home.

The slowest month is January for closings, so don’t put your house on the market in November. But, sales do happen every month and not an insignificant number.

The biggest monthly jump is from May to June, which means the biggest jump is from March to April in terms of sales. So there is a big spring market push in April (maybe thats from realtors saying April 1).

Overall, its interesting to look at the breakdown. I would still shoot for an April list date if possible, that gives you some margin for error if the house doesn’t sell right away. If it doesnt sell in spring, you have 3-5 months more to sell, where if it doesn’t sell in summer, every month can add some pressure to sell before the holidays.