Selling season.....

18 years ago

Calling all realestate people or anyone who might know what are the best months to list your home! And is S. CA any different that other areas?

I've heard April is the start and September is 'the end', but more recently, that September is the *best* month for selling. At this pont I am totally confused!

I will be listing my home mid-June and if it means I have more time, all the better. ;o)

patty_cakes

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Comments (7)

sweet_tea
18 years ago
List the home as soon as it is ready to show and sell. To hold a home waiting for a certain selling season is not smart.

Even if there is a better season to sell, you never know when the perfect buyer for YOUR HOME is looking. If you wait until Sept, what if the perfect buyers were looking in August and placed on contract on another home because yours was not yet on the market. Another issue with seasons, many sellers might hold off until that season to list, and then you have lots of competition. If you put yours on the market when there are fewer homes on the market, then you have more possibility to be seen/sold at that given time.
monzamess
18 years ago
My own selling agent and several I've seen on TV see a high DOM (days on market) as a kiss of death. I think that's why people wait until the right time, whatever that is, to put the house on the market. Is this view of DOM yet another regional thing?
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triciae
18 years ago
Is DOM the kiss of death?

Of course not. Seriously, if I find the perfect home for our family am I not going to buy it because it's been on the market for 189 days? That's ridiculous. DH & I are attending an auction June 2 with our check in hand for a home that's been sitting for almost a year.

All of this is mostly nonsense. We're in the down part of a normal real estate cycle. Some people have a higher desire to control their destiny. So, they look for ways to accomplish that. Then, companies pay upper six-figure salaries to ad executives to "teach" us that if we just pack our "clutter" up & go buy their new "accessories" (notice how our stuff is "clutter" & their stuff is "accessories"?); toss dice to second guess when the best time to sell is; compulsively monitor DOM; and toss Chlorox over our homes to "neutralize" them we can have some control over our fate.

To a point, you can exercise some control (curb appeal, priced right, clean). But so much of this stuff is really just out of our control. In a down market, homes sell for less & they take longer to sell. Period.

Stop trying to "read the tea leaves" & concentrate on what you can control. Eventually, if you do that your home will sell.

Tricia
kathleen_li
18 years ago
If you have kids you want to be in so they start school in Sept. Or at least it was for the last 3 houses we sold as well as my son who is buying and selling now.
marys1000
18 years ago
My realtor has said that May is not good because so many people are involved in graduations but that thinks pick up in June. Of course sometimes things she says seem to conflict depending.
laura1202
18 years ago
I agree with Sweet tea. Put your home on the maket (with the RIGHT AGENT) as soon as it is ready.

We (re) listed in mid-January of this year (sloooooooow market and slooooooower time of year, according to conventional wisdom) and had a ratified contact in two weeks.

Inventory is up in most areas which means you have a lot of competition. The sooner you are out there, the better.

Good Luck!
johnmari
18 years ago
We get a late start on the spring/summer season because we're up north and April is still cold and often snowy. June and July seem to be the biggies around here, people want to be closed and moved in before school starts in September. May is mixed, especially if the weather is rotten the way it was this month - it was cold and rainy (we even had some snow squalls) most of the month which drove people indoors rather than out cruising for houses. It took forever for our trees to get their leaves so that the property was at its best (it shows infinitely better in the summer and fall than it does in winter and early spring).

However... We bought this house at the height of the "dead season" around here, late January/early February, so the others are exactly right in that you should put your house on the market when it's ready to go because there are buyers out there in every season. According to some folks I've talked to, "off-season" buyers are more likely to be looking because they have to (we definitely were, we had to move out of our rental ASAP), rather than just because they feel like having a new house and so have the leisure to putz around and browse and wait for the "just right" house to come along rather than taking "good enough".