If you're selling a home, you likely want to get top dollar for it. But it can often be difficult to know exactly what to do to get the highest offer from buyers.
To help you out if you're putting your home on the market, the real-estate marketplace Zillow analyzed data from more than three million home sales in 2020 and 2021. The goal was to assess which factors had the biggest impact on selling price. This analysis revealed that one move, in particular, could increase the sales price of a home by 2.8%.
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This decision could lead to your home selling for more
According to Zillow, timing makes a huge impact on the final price of your property.
Specifically, their analysis showed that listing a house on a Thursday in late April is the optimum time. Properties that went on the market on that schedule ended up selling for 2.8% more. Although this may not sound like a lot, a 2.8% increase is around $9,300 for the typical U.S. home.
Homes listed in April were found to get a higher number of daily page views from Zillow users compared to properties listed at other times during the course of the year. In fact, there were around 1/3 more views than the annual average number of people looking at houses. With more eyes on a property listing, there are more potential buyers, more competition for properties, and a greater chance of getting a competitive offer.
Zillow's data also showed that properties went to "pending" faster in April compared with during other times of the year. During the pandemic when houses were selling quickly, properties listed in April went to pending around one day faster than typical homes on average. During the pre-pandemic times, in 2019, homes listed in April went pending around three days faster than the national average.
Why do homes do better when they are listed in April?
Many people begin shopping for properties in early spring when the weather is starting to get warmer and when school will soon be coming to an end.
Since April often marks the start of the spring season for many, there's an increase in demand for properties at that time. And Thursday is an optimum time to list during the month of April because people often begin looking for properties on that day so they can set up showings for the weekend ahead. When more people look for homes, this drives up demand and thus helps to raise the price of the property.
Now, it's a long way until April, and you may not want to put off listing your property for that long -- especially as demand for homes could fall over the course of this year due to rising mortgage rates. But the data is clear and consistent about when the best time to sell is. So if you're flexible in your moving date and want the best price for your real estate investment, it may well be worth putting off listing your home on the MLS until the date that Zillow has determined is best for fetching a high price.
