As we enter the cooler fall and winter months in Los Angeles, general real estate wisdom claims the market slows down a bit before picking up again during the next year’s spring. That may have been true at one point, but with Los Angeles’s real estate market more competitiv than ever, it seems potential home sellers may never get a reprieve of all the action.
Still, the facts remain. Nationwide, May really is the best month to list your home in Los Angeles, according to Zillow. If you are planning to sell your home in 2019 (yikes!), and since the spring inevitably always seems to roll around faster than ever the best time to start thinking about and planning for the sale your home is now.
Of course, there’s no wrong time to sell your home, especially here in LA, but generally speaking, if you list your home around the beginning of May you can expect to get a bit of a higher price on average ($2400) and a quicker sale (about two whole weeks).
Home sellers on the West Coast generally gain the most by taking advantage of their market’s respective magic window – the six markets where sellers earn the largest premium over listing at the average time are all in California, Oregon or Washington. Sellers listing in Los Angeles can expect to earn $8,100 more if listing between May 16 and May 31, preferably on a Thursday according to Zillow.
Finally, listing later in the spring isn’t the only late advice worth taking – in a majority of markets, putting your home on the market at the end of the week or on the weekend is the best bet in order to maximize the number of times a home is viewed online in the first few days of listing. According to earlier research, the largest number of home shoppers will see a given listing within its first week on the market, and it’s important to capture that early interest as quickly as possible in order to boost the chances of a quicker sale.
Of course, it can sometimes take months or even years to get a house ready for its big listing reveal. A lot of times only a fresh coat of paint and other cosmetics is necessary, while other times major construction and major upgrades are in order so that you can be sure you get the best price for your home. That’s why it’s important for home sellers to start the home selling journey now, months before the prime time real estate month of May.
If you are hoping to sell a property or purchase a new one in the new year, give me a call or tell me more about it. We can provide a free market evaluation, and give you all the information you need to get started.