Let the selling begin. Photo illustration by C.J. Burton—Getty Images
The housing world’s pivotal spring season has arrived. Home sales bloom in the spring, at least normally they do, but this year’s season isn’t a typical one. It will be more like a mini-spring season consisting of high mortgage rates, higher home prices, and just a trickle of inventory, as Fortune previously reported.
But there is one week that will be the best time to sell all year, according to Realtor.com. “The week of April 14–20 is expected to have the ideal balance of housing market conditions that favor home sellers, more so than any other week in the year,” Realtor.com’s economic research analyst, Hannah Jones, wrote in a recent report. There are five reasons why, but not one is that it will have the highest prices of the year. Still, “while it does not have the highest price or the lowest time on the market of the year, this week offers higher-than-average prices and lower-than-average time on the market while also offering a higher-than-average number of buyers—measured as viewers per listing,” she added.
First, homes during that week have historically reached prices 1.1% higher than the typical week throughout the year, and are normally 10.4% higher than the beginning of the year, Jones wrote. And if it follows last year’s pattern, the median listing price could be $7,400 above the typical week and $34,000 more than at the start of the year.
Second, in previous years, the selected week had 18.4% more views per listing than the average week. Last year, it even had 22.8% more views per listing than typically. That leads us to the third reason, which “thanks to above-average demand, homes sell more quickly during this week,” Jones wrote. Historically, homes sold 17% (or nine days) faster the week of April 14 than the average week.
Now to the fourth reason: less competition. Active inventory is higher than last year, but it’s still substantially lower than pre-pandemic levels, which means there are fewer sellers selling. The final reason? Fewer price reductions. Roughly 24.6% fewer homes had a price reduction during the chosen week in previous years. “Price reductions tend to peak in the fall as sellers left on the market after the summer rush try to attract attention,” Jones wrote. “Price reductions tend to be the lowest from late winter into spring as buyer activity ramps up.”
It’s important to note that April 14–20 is considered the best week to sell on a national basis, and that can change when considering an individual metropolitan area, which Realtor.com breaks down. Additionally, Realtor.com chose the third week in April as the best time to sell after considering seasonal trends and housing metrics from the last five years, excluding 2020, and calculating a best time to list scores for each week of the year; mortgage rates aren’t one of those metrics.
Nevertheless, there’s no question this year’s spring conditions will be slightly better than last year’s for sellers. Last year, existing-home sales fell to their lowest point in almost three decades, partly because higher mortgage rates stopped or delayed homeowners from selling their homes. Supply was already tight, and this only made it worse and essentially kept home prices high after they skyrocketed during the pandemic. Mortgage rates have fallen from their recent peak, and the average 30-year fixed rate is sitting at 6.92%. So buyer and seller activity has picked up, Jones explained, and we’re taking “baby steps toward affordability.”
