Busting the ‘right time’ property market myth

We are often asked the question: when is the best time to sell one’s property?

One can offer 10 different answers. Mine is usually that the best time to sell is when you are ready to do so.

Properties sell all year round. Sometimes early in the year is good but sometimes the end of the year is just as good.

We even sell properties on Christmas Eve, during school holidays and in weak markets. There really is no bad time to sell. If you are ready to make the move in your life now, then that is the best time.

Trying to anticipate the right time to put your house on the market, believing that traditionally a more active time of the year is more favourable, can be perilous. April and May, for example, would traditionally be a good time to sell, but if you had waited for those months in two of the past four years, lockdown and the KZN floods would have scuppered that move.

General market conditions also play a part. There is not much you can do about that, but some years are just better or worse than others. Then there are your micro market conditions.

If there just happens to be an oversupply of stock for sale in your area, your estate, or your complex, that would usually be a slightly unfavourable time to put your property on the market compared to the more positive scenario when limited properties are in the mix.

From an agent’s perspective, I maintain you can be as busy as you want to be and create your own market, which is truer than you might think. But what do the statistics say?

Judging by the averages for the last nine years – although there are no big winners and big losers – statistically speaking the month we agree on most offers has been October, closely followed by August and September. In other words, right now!

In a nutshell, when August and September arrive, people suddenly perceive that the end of the year is fast approaching.

This gives many people who are looking, or have been thinking of moving, the jumpstart they need to try and get everything done and dusted this year and not start or continue the same process again next year.

This gives the market a one-time hit of urgency with buyers making decisions that you don’t get at any other time. It’s a small window of opportunity because December is statistically the lowest month for agreed offers.

So if you are thinking of selling now and wondering when to do it, I would personally make use of the next eight to 10 weeks.

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