When Is The Best Time To Sell Your Home

So a question I get a lot from sellers is Kurt, you've been in this business nearly 20 years. You've sold thousands of properties. When's the best time to sell my property? So my answers are always the same. And I have three of them.

And the first answer is always when it's best for you. Why? Because I understand that there's a lot of life variables when it comes to actually selling your property and moving your family. Whether it's down the street or out of state, you have to spend time getting the property ready. There might be job variables that are in place. The school year might be something that affects your timing. So in the end, you want to line up all of these life variables, which is most important, and do it when it's best for you.

Now, my next answer is: If you are in control of those variables and you can decide to sell at any time. I tell people, Put your home on the market when the competition is at its lowest, meaning you're not going to be competing with a lot of other sellers in your neighborhood or around your area. When the inventory is low you can at many times get better pricing and you don't need as many buyers in those instances.

So when is that? Well, as soon as the end of September traditionally hits here in San Diego, we start to see homes come off the market. Why? Some of them get sold. A lot of people aren't wanting to put their homes on the market during the holiday season. So we see the inventory start to trickle down all the way through December. And if you can capitalize on that, meaning maybe you put your home on the market during the holidays, but you're not going to decorate, you're not going to have people over. It can be very advantageous for you in regards to finding a buyer and getting a good price.

Now, my third answer is: Putting your home on the market. When the inventory is at its lowest and when the demand for buyers is at its highest. Now, when is that? While already mentioned that the last quarter of the year that home start coming off of the market and a lot of home sellers aren't preparing their homes to go on the market during the holiday season.

So if you're able to put your home on the market the first week or two of January, you're beating the spring rush and you're getting your home on the market when the others haven't prepared theirs. So the inventory is traditionally still very low in January. But the other thing that's different is as soon as New Year's is over, buyers come out of the woodwork. They start looking online, they start looking at price properties many times because they're anticipating buying in the spring, but they want to get an early jump start. So January is a great time where the inventory is at its lowest, but buyer demand is at its highest.

So those are my three answers to the questions. When people ask me when's the best time to sell?