Taking Your House off the Market for Winter?
Agents often recommend and sellers often think they should take their houses off the market sometime around the beginning of December and put them back on the market in February or March because it's so hard to sell a house in Winter. Let's take a look to see if that is true.
We want to look at the chances an individual seller has of selling their house in a given month. I used data for Northern Virginia (Arlington and Fairfax Counties, Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax Cities) for the last 24 months from November 2005 to October 2007. The market was fairly consistent over this time (a buyer's market). Because we are still in a similar market, and this is the most recent data, I believe it is the most reflective of what will happen over this winter and in to next year assuming the market does not change significantly.
I combined two months in each column in this spreadsheet (ie. Jan 2006+Jan 2007) added up the listings from both months and the sales from both months. Then I calculated what the chances of someone with their house on the market would get a completed contract that month. I then ranked the months according to a seller's best chance to get a contract. Here are the results:
It may surprise many that over the last two years your best chance of selling your home was in January. December ranked 4th behind March and February. So the best quarter to sell a home was the first quarter, with December close behind.
If you are thinking of waiting until spring to put your house on the market, you may be missing out on your very best chance to sell. As you can see from the data, it's not that we sell more houses in the winter, it's that so many people take their houses off the market that it gives those that stay on a much better chance of selling. This year it may be even more drastic. Because of the slow market many would-be sellers are waiting until spring to put their houses on the market believing that is their best chance to sell. If I were selling, I would do all I could to get it sold before those sellers put their houses on the market in mass numbers next spring.
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Posted by Jeff Royce, RE/MAX Choice Real Estate, 10511-A Braddock Road, Fairfax, VA 22032. 703-585-5663.
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3 comments:
Jeff,
I never would have thought the data would prove out this idea...bravo for putting numbers to this. January is my new June...
Jeff,
Thanks for putting this together.
So here it is saying that in the Supply and Demand equation, the SUPPLY is MORE important.
In other words, yeah there might be more buyers in the Spring, but there is a disproportionate number of listings.
But then that kinda kills the "buy in the winter to get a better deal" doesn't it? We can't have it both ways.
We can't tell sellers they are better off selling in December and buyers that they get better deals in December.
So where do we go from here?
I'll add this blog post to my post on Dec vs Jan. Thanks for beating me to the punch!@
Frank
Blog.FranklyRealty.com
It may kill the buy in the winter theory. I was strictly talking about the chances you have of selling your house in this particular market in each month.
Of course, more homes selling would point to higher prices, but it doesn't always work that way. We have had many fewer home sales this year, but prices have remained relatively stable, down a few percent in the area as a whole.
Seasonal price changes, which I think would interest a buyer more, are harder to quantify because we are working with a moving target. Somebody smarter than me will have to come up with a way to quantify that.
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