When Is The Best Time of Year To Sell My Home

Fri 18 Dec 2020

“When is the best time of year to sell my home” or “Is now a good time to sell my home” are two questions often posed to an estate agent and certainly for the past 35 years I have been working in the estate agency space, they have been questions from prospective sellers curious to know the answer.

Certainly in the age of snail mail, pre-digital marketing and property portals, such as Rightmove and Zoopla, the annual market seasonality was pretty much set. This would see the property market awaken from winter slumber come April, full tilt activity April, May June and most of July. Then the schools would break for summer holidays with August quieting down while owners took in some holiday rays, after which it was all go again for September, October, hitting the autumn winter slow down, November, December, January, February.

Today we see property market activity behaving significantly differently. Change being brought about by influences such as smartphones, property portal property alerts and milder winters with global warming.

Let me explain. The smartphone revolution means that today the vast majority of us are connected to the information super-highly, that is the web. We have a constant flow of inbound information, we have ability to search on the go and communication abilities have never been better or more varied, think social media. Property portals issue new listing notifications, more or less instantaneously, as soon as the estate agent releases a property for sale or rent to the market, buyers and renters receive these on their smartphones and if the property is of interest they act, often immediately, even if they are laying on their sunbed in the Costa del Sol. Then the weather, the fact is that searching for a new home is more pleasurable when the climate is mild and not restricted when there is snow on the ground. As disastrous as global warming is for the World, for the UK property market has benefited from milder autumn and winter weather.

So when is the best time to sell? In my opinion probably the only month when the property market quiets down is December. That said this year 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen property sales being agreed. This is perhaps due to lockdowns and furlough freeing up more time for buyers to search for their next home. Certainly for many years now the property portals and website visitor traffic spikes highest in the period between Christmas and New Year, so if you are looking to sell in 2021, irrespective if you’ve got your Christmas tree up think about getting your property listed for sale now (there is still time next week :-)) and you can achieve your ambition of a new home for the New Year!

Martin Cunningham MNAEA

Living Property Sales & Auctions