When is the best time to Buy or Sell a home in Fort Lauderdale?

When is the best time to buy or sell a home in Fort Lauderdale?

Here is the thesis. 

More single family homes are sold during the summer months because that is when people who own single family homes most often move.  Why the summer? Because that is the time you can move and not interrupt your kids school year.

More condos are sold between January and March because that’s when all the snowbirds flock down here looking for a new place to live. 

When is the worst time to sell a single family home or condo? During November and December because nobody buys a home during those months, they’re all busy with the holidays!

So what does the actual data say? My name is Casey Prindle, I’m a real estate agent that works in and around the Fort Lauderdale area.  If you’re thinking about buying or selling a property down here, I’d love to talk to you.  If your considering a move today, or 6 months from now, lets start the conversation! Feel free to call text or email me! Let me help you open, or close, the latest chapter in your life.

Let’s pull up the single family home data first. Let’s start with the lows. Here we see the total number of sales happening on a given month. 

Looks like January of 2019 we have a low. January and April of 2020 are the year lows. January and October of 2021 are the lows. December of 2022 is the low.  January, and February of 2023 look pretty rough.

Weakest month seems to be January for any given year in single family homes.

Why does this make sense? Because sales happen 30-45 days after a contract. So that means fewer buyers entered into contracts in November and December, which tracks with the holiday thesis. 

Who is this good for BUYERS!!!!! It means sellers are seeing fewer offers in November and December, so Buyers, great time to make offers where you can expect less competition!

How about some highs. April, May, June, July of 2019 look to be the strongest. 2020 September, October, December seem to be the strongest months. March and June of 2021 look strong. March, April, May of 2022 look strong.  March of 2023 looks strong. Let’s tally some things up here:

Let’s do a count of high months regardless of years:

·        March x 4

·        April x 2

·        May x 2

·        June x 2

I think you could generally say it was likely that the best time to list, if you had to pick a single month, would be in January or February, with a stretch into March and early May. Assuming 30 days marketing time and 30-45 days closing time, the January and February listings lead to the March/April sales.  There is logic here, but it looks like not along the school swapping theory, but the snowbird theory. Now that being said, I don’t really think you can say there’s a bad month to list your home except during the holiday months as we see no highs in January or February. Fort Lauderdale is just a bit less affected by seasonality in single family homes sales than some other regions.

How about condo’s

Let’s look at the low months by year.  2019 January and February were just about tied. January, April, and May look to be the lows in 2020. January and  February lows in 2022. January and February of 2023 look to be the lows.

So again we see weak sales in January/ February which tracks with the holiday thesis.

March, April, May and December look to be highs in 2019. March, October, November, December look to be 2020 highs. April, May, June of 2021 are the highs. March, April, May are the 2022 highs.  Let’s total them up:

·        March x 3

·        April x 3

·        May x 3

·         

So did our thesis pan out? Partially.

Interesting point.  In BOTH single family and condo’s, the months with the highest number of closings were March, April, May. So it looks like there is data to support the idea that the best months to list your home would be January, February, and March.

Don’t forget the other side of this coin!  Buyers want to go shopping 45-60 days before the low months so they’re competing with fewer other buyers!  So both buyers and sellers can find value in this data.

I think you can tilt the odds more in, or away from, your favor depending on when you list.  Now lets not get caught up in the minutia of this data, home sales occur each and every month.  I would use the data as a general guide in helping your overall analysis, not something to solely base your listing or purchasing decision upon.  

So if you’re thinking about buying or selling a home or condo, call text or email me! Let’s keep the conversation going.