Spring Surge: Why Home Sellers Keep Choosing The End Of The Year To Sell

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Amid a bumper 2024 spring selling season, analysis of selling prices shows why: November is the best month for sellers, with national prices 0.78% higher than the average throughout the year.

With spring seeing unusually strong market activity this year, analysis of selling prices shows this follows strong market outcomes, with above-average prices in October and November, when market activity is high.

But for those who are planning their upcoming selling campaign, the analysis also shows early in the year is also a good time to sell – with February and March sales also achieving above-average prices.

November the statistically best time to sell

While it won’t be the case for all sellers (and the results differ across markets), nationally the highest prices are achieved in November, 0.78% above the average throughout the year.

This is based on an analysis of sales from 2014 to 2023.

This price difference means for the seller of an average priced home – which was around $880,000 – a November sale would net around $7,000 more than the average price throughout the year.

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Sellers benefit from other times of high buyer demand

The end of the year in general is a good time to sell. Flanking November, both October (+0.57%) and December (+0.21%) achieve higher-than-average prices.

The other good time to sell is early in the year, both February (+0.52%) and March (+0.60%) prices are significantly above-average.

It is no surprise these are the two periods of the year when there tends to be the most market activity, and when buyers are out in force.

By contrast, the lowest average seasonal prices are achieved in June and July, when there are traditionally fewer transactions and buyers.

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These estimates are based on a seasonal decomposition of hedonic price indices (which account for different types of homes being sold at different times of the year). The average seasonal deviations each month are extracted from the index trend. It represents an average over ten years of sales prices from 2014 to 2023.

But it depends where your home is…

While spring sales almost always achieve above-average prices across markets, some regions achieve the highest prices earlier in the year. In Sydney, the highest prices are seen in March, while in Darwin it is April. Adelaide is the most surprising, with the highest prices in July, when nationally prices tend to be a little below-average.

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Some markets see much larger seasonal variation than others. For example, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth see prices more than 1% higher than average in their best selling month, while Hobart and Darwin see over 2%.

This data is worth considering for sellers as we head into November, but it’s just one factor in achieving positive sale outcomes.

Sellers have a lot of choices to make when selling their home: the type of campaign, the staging and presentation of their home, whether to use an auction, and finally when to sell.

It’s good to know that the common advice to sell in spring is also backed up by data.

As the very strong selling season in 2024 continues, it will be a relief for sellers that the additional competition does not typically dampen selling prices.

But at the end of the day, a good home with a good campaign is likely to achieve a solid result any time of year.

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