The Best of Times, The Worst of Times (To Sell a Home)

When is the best time to sell and when is the worst time to sell a home? The correct timing can directly influence price, DOM duration and the number of leads you generate with your listing.

We are certainly in a period of wisdom and insight, and yet foolishness prevails. With the amount of data available to real estate and mortgage professionals, it makes sense that we leverage readily available information to improve our prospects of increasing profitability for our clients.

Here then are the best and worst times to list a residential real estate property according to new data from Zillow.

The Best of Times to Sell:
New data from a Zillow survey suggests that the best day of the week to list your home is Thursday. This is pretty well known to most top producing teams and agents. However, its not ubiquitous as not everyone chooses to do so despite the industry “knowing” this is the case. 21% of listings in the study took advantage of the Thursday bump nationally. Several individual markets saw as high as 33% of listings placed on a Thursday.

The Worst of Times to Sell:
According to Zillow’s report data, the worst time of the week to sell is the weekend. Only 13% of all listings go live during 29% of the week. Weekend listings staying on the market longer and getting a lower sales price. As you would guess, the worst part of the weekend to lists Sunday.
The fall typically sees a reduction in price and inventory that picks up speed leading to a high point in the late spring and early summer. The worst month of the year to list is October, with the fewest sales going over list price and sitting on the market for the longest period of time. So perhaps when the seller asks “is now a good time to sell?” the answer from a national data perspective is “as long as its not a Sunday in October.”

The Heat is On
This year (and last) are unlike any other times we’ve seen in the industry. This market is so hot, it is shattering records. Half of all listings in the US (in 2021) have sold in one week. So, what if the fall cool down never happens? Zillow Economist Nancy Wu added in the PR that it’s an “open question” whether the market will slow down in the fall as it does on a typical year, or by how much.

Did I just combine Dickens and Beverly Hills Cop / Glenn Fry references in one post? Yup. And thats absurd. Should I apologize? Perhaps. But 2020 and 2021 Housing is kinda that level of absurd – and we are all coming to expect the unexpected.