Ask Eli: The Best Time To Sell/Buy a Home in Washington D.C.

This column is written by Eli Tucker, a DC Metro-based Realtor, and weekly real estate columnist for ARLnow. Please submit your questions to him via email for response in future columns. Enjoy!

Question: When is the best time to sell a home in Washington DC? Is the best time to sell a home also the worst time to buy a home?

Answer: Hi PoPville, I hope everybody had a great Fourth of July in the Nation’s Capital!

I write a weekly data-driven real estate column for PoPville’s sister local news company in Arlington, ARLnow and was asked to jump in as a guest columnist for this week’s PoPville column.

All of the data I use is from the MLS (real estate database of record) and highly customized for the specific topic to provide the most accurate information possible. I hope you find it interesting and informative!

The question of the best/worst time to buy or sell a home is one of the most common questions I get from clients.

A quick google search or conversation with different real estate agents will result in any number of theories and opinions on the topic so I’ve put together real sales data from Washington D.C. since 2014 to provide the answer through unbiased data.

Best Month To Sell Is…

Statistically, putting your home on the market for sale from February-May gives you the best opportunity to sell faster and for more money than any other time of the year, with April being the aggregate leader in speed and negotiation leverage.

However, you will face the most competition from new listings during these months but increased demand clearly off-sets that.

The Data Set

Below are the key filters I used to ensure accuracy of these conclusions. It’s important to note that the data points, like average days on market, do not reflect the entire D.C. housing market, but the sub-set of data defined below:

• Washington D.C. homes sales from July 2014-July 2018
• Only homes that sold within 90 days on market. I did this to isolate homes that were market-ready or close to it when they were listed for sale. If a home in D.C. takes 90+ days to sell, it’s not a fair data point to draw any conclusions from because there’s something the data doesn’t show us that kept it from selling.
• Only homes priced $250,000-$2,500,000
• No bank-owned, foreclosure, short-sale or otherwise distressed sales
• No sales with Cooperative ownership

Analysis

The table below shows the custom data set from four years of sales in Washington D.C., with cells highlighted light green that offer sellers above-average opportunities for a successful home sale based on the month listed and type of home being sold.

The dark green cells are the most favorable months to list a home for sale in each category. The Avg Purchase to Ask Price % is one of my favorite custom stats because it highlights how much negotiation leverage buyers/sellers have by showing the average purchase price relative to the original asking price (100% = buyer paid full price).

• Listing a home for sale in the spring, from Feb-May results in the most favorable sales for home owners and if you aggregate all of the home types, April is the clear leader
• It’s interesting that for each housing type, Sept. or Oct. have above average sale prices despite the other market indicators being below average, with particularly high levels of competition from new listings
• If you want to bring your home to market when you’ll have the least competition, December is clearly the time to do it with only about 40% of the new listing activity seen the rest of the year
• February offers a great balance of less competition than the other spring months with above average market indicators across nearly every category
• It’s no surprise that month listed influences your odds of success the least in condos and most in single-family detached homes, based on the variance in the best and worst months for each category

Is The Best Time To Buy The Worst Time To Sell?

Logic would suggest that the best time to buy a home is the worst time to sell one, and vice versa. In other words, the data would tell you, as a buyer, that you should stay out of the market in the spring and start preparing to buy now, right?

Well, it depends what you’re looking for.

If you’re strictly shopping for a deal, I would say that’s a safe theory — you should be buying when homes take longer to sell and the average buyer is negotiating more money off of the asking price (July-Jan).

However, don’t forget that you actually have to find a home you want to buy first and with inventory levels in D.C. being as low as they are, your odds of finding the right home during most of the months from July-January are much lower because the rate of new listings is so low.

The aggregate data suggests that buyers should look at homes listed in September for the best combination of below average days on market, slightly more negotiation leverage than average, and one of the best months for new inventory all year.

Contact Me For Your Own Custom Data Sets/Analysis

I believe that good real estate decisions should be grounded in strong, customized data analysis. I think we do local, personalized data analysis better than anybody else so please do not hesitate to reach out to me to request personalized data sets for your home sale or purchase at [email protected].

If you’d like a question answered in my weekly column or custom data for your home purchase or sale, please send an email to [email protected]. To read any of my older posts, visit the blog section of my website at www.EliResidential.com. Call me directly at (703) 539-2529.

Eli Tucker is a licensed Realtor in Virginia, Washington D.C., and Maryland with RLAH Real Estate, 11 Dupont Circle #650 Washington DC 20036, (202) 518-8781.