Everyone knows, the summer is the busiest sales season -- but how does the rest of the year compare?  And is it reasonable to list a home for sale now (in the Fall) or should homeowners wait for Spring?



The graph above shows the percentage of homes that go under contract each month through the year.  Thus, if 1000 homes were available for sale in January, we could expect that 6.9% of them (69) might go under contract that month.

The red line running through the graph shows the average -- on average, 7.7% of available homes go under contract each month in this area.  Thus, the "better than average" months to have your home on the market are March through July.  But....does that mean that homeowners who didn't sell in those months should give up until the following March?  I say no.....

First, on average, 423 homes will go under contract in those better-than-average months of March through July.  But an additional 405 homes will go under contract in the remaining worse-than-average months of the year of August through February.

Second, other than November (6.2%) and December (5.5%) all of the other months show roughly 7% of homes going under contract --- a mere 0.7% lower than the average of 7.7%.

So, homeowners, you need not be depressed from now until next March when the buyers come back out of hibernation.  There will continue to be buyers in the market even if we are currently in the not-quite-so-active months of the market.