If you’re looking to sell your home, is there an optimal window of time during the year — say a two-week period — when your listing is likely to sell faster and at a higher price than any other time? Put another way, could the ideal time for listing your house come down to a specific month or even a two-week span?
One group of researchers says yes. After sorting through 20 million-plus sales of single-family homes, condos and cooperatives that occurred between 2008 and 2015, researchers at Zillow, the real estate marketing company, concluded that listing times do indeed matter. List at the wrong time and you might take longer to sell and sell for less. Choose the optimal two-week period and you’ll do better.
Nationwide, researchers found that “homes listed in the late spring (May 1 through May 15) sell around 18.5 days faster and for 1 percent more than the average listing.”
Optimal times can vary, however, by location. In the Washington, D.C. and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale metropolitan areas, April 16 through April 30 produces faster selling times and higher prices, according to Zillow. In San Diego, the best two weeks come earlier — March 16 through March 31. In Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco they’re considerably later — May 16 through May 31. Other major markets, such as Chicago, Seattle, Phoenix, and New York, track the national sweet spot time, May 1 through May 15. It’s a little hard to figure in terms of climate — Boston and Los Angeles don’t match up well on that score — but researchers insist that’s what the numbers say.
