Timing the Market: When is the Best Time to Sell Your Home?

Spoiler alert: when it comes to choosing the best time to sell your home, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer. That doesn’t mean you don’t have options; in fact, you have plenty. Rather than racking your brain or stressing out about finding the “perfect” time, weigh certain factors to choose the right path forward for you.

How Do You Know When it’s the Best Time to Sell Your Home?

When deciding on selling your home, there’s plenty of factors you need to consider. First, start watching the market regularly and closely. What does watching “the market” mean? Watching the market means keeping an eye on the news at a national level. Keep your ears perked up and eyes peeled for things like Fed rate hikes, which change the federal funds rate.

You’ll also want to watch what’s happening in your local market. Look around at data online on a major portal to see your neighborhood or town. See how many homes are for sale, how long they’re taking to sell (look for a term called “days on market”), and watch how homes’ selling prices are increasing or decreasing.

National shifts, changes, and trends will impact what’s happening in your backyard, so you can’t focus too much on one without staying up to speed with the other.

What to Consider When Federal Rates Go Up

You might be reading this and wondering, How does a federal rate impact me? Great question. The federal funds rate is overarching for financial institutions nationwide, and determines how much interest they charge each other to borrow money overnight. As we continue to zoom out, a wide variety of other rates in our economy are tied to the federal rate; therefore, any Fed rate hike impacts consumers directly, including but not limited to the interest they pay on their loans.

In this scenario for home sales, we’ll focus on mortgage loans. If interest rates increase, the cost of a monthly mortgage payment will increase since more interest is owed. For example, if you took out a mortgage loan 10 years ago, the interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was just 4.31%. Today in 2024, the interest rate on the same type of loan is more than 6%.

What this Means at a Local Level

These increases tend to make it tougher for home buyers to afford higher home prices, since a good portion of their monthly mortgage payment will inflate with increased interest rates. As a result, you’re likely to see buyers hesitating to purchase at all, and sellers lowering their home’s selling price to achieve a successful sale.

Things to Consider for Timing the Selling of Your Home

As you gear up to find the right time to sell your home, keep an eye on these national and local updates for at least a few months. You should also keep up with interest rate forecasts to see when experts predict they will decrease or pick back up again. This will start to give you an idea of what you can realistically expect for selling your home. Remember, if interest rates go up, buyers may hesitate. If they go down, selling might get a bit easier as the number of buyers increases.

You’ll also want to regularly review your own situation. Do you have any wiggle room to decrease your price, or is the funding for the next property you purchase dependent on selling at your asking price? Are you in a rush to sell your home due to a life change or event? Are you in a seller’s market, or a buyer’s market? Each of these questions will shape knowing when to sell your home.

How to Really Know the Best Time to Sell Your Home

If you’re still uncertain on getting the timing just right to sell your home, it’s always optimal to meet with a trusted, professional real estate agent working in the market where your home is located. They’ll have real-time, data-rich intel and plenty of real estate-specific experience to help you develop a realistic timeline of when to sell your home. They can also help you identify areas to improve your home to increase its odds of selling at your intended price, or go to bat for you during negotiations in the listing and selling process.

Real estate agents are specifically trained to work with you and help you reach your desired goals, no matter what’s happening at a national or local level. They’re primed and ready to walk you through every step of the process to make knowing the best time to sell your home easier.

To get in touch with an expert real estate agent in your own local area, you can connect with them today on RealEstateAgents.com. They’re ready and willing to support sellers like you and help you find the perfect time to sell.

Get started on RealEstateAgents.com today to meet an agent who can guide your home sale!