Seasonal Housing Cycle

When is the best time to buy and sell?

And the official answer:  Buy low and sell higher!

But if you are a chart watcher, you can't but help to see the patterns and wonder . . .

Here in Utah the last 4 years have been UP, UP, UP, but notice the patterns in the listings and sales.  I am sure the graph is similar for other parts of the country.

GREEN = Listed homes. See the top at the end of the 2nd quarter and the bottom at the end of 4th quarter.

BLACK = Sold homes. The top is fairly equal at the 2nd and 3rd quarters. The bottom is not until 1st quarter, which makes sense since it takes 5 weeks from listing to closing minimum for retail sales.

BLUE = Median Price (just spiked $20k in last 3 months to $250k!) Notice that the sales price is pretty consistent over the quarters, but that it tends to jump up during the 2nd quarter each year.

So what do you do with this information? I think you don't change anything at all! If you start thinking too hard about it, you may miss deals.

However, PRICES seem to be the lowest during the 4th and 1st quarters and the highest during the 2nd and 3rd. The prices are king, not the listings or total number sold. The prices are the end result of all that activity. The price is affected by so many variables locally and nationally.

I don't think there is any benefit with low- and medium-priced 4 to 6 week flips to trying to time the market.

The one thing I can think of is if you have BIG projects that will take more than 3 months, buy in Oct to Dec and sell in Mar to Jun, but even then the impact is probably not as significant as the graph makes it out to be.

It's very simple: Buy low; sell higher! Don't be greedy and keep the volume up.