Best and worst months to sell and buy a house

RHemmings

   housebuyer143 said:

The guide is as you would expect.  

Thank you.

gwynlas said:

There is no better time to buy or sell as house as far as I am aware as it varies on a case to case basis and there are too many variables. Families might want to move in during summer before start of new school year. Others might not want disruption before Christmas so move early in New Year and ake advantage of January sales for new furnishings. House builders might offer incentives to fit in with quartely and end of year targets.Bank holidays offer long weekends for unpacking and settling in without using much annual leave.  Another point is does best time to buy mean best time to offer or best time to complete which in most of the UK is up to the vagaries of conveyancing.

Yes, I agree with that and others who say more or less the same thing. I'm not suggesting that there's a right time when it will be easy and it's hard at other times. The houses that come on are individual houses sold by individuals with their individual circumstances. It may help if there are fewer buyers because I don't want to get into a bidding war.  But, now is a moderately bad time to sell according to the above 

theartfullodger said:

Best for what?  Speed? Price?  Decent people to deal with? Impressing neighbours? (very) Serious question.

All of those, and more. E.g. I wasn't aware that there were better times of the year for conveyancing as solicitors (and the council) are less busy, and never even thought of that. I suppose that choice and lack of competition are the two first ones. I'm not expecting price to be very different at all, as even now at a 'bad' selling time I see bidding wars when properties are competitively priced. 

Green_hopeful said:

Estate agents say Boxing Day is a good day for listing because people are bored of Christmas and have nothing to do other than look at Rightmove. Sample of one, I listed my house on 26 December 2016 and sold within a month. 

Like @Skiddaw1, I'm taking a wild guess that you priced your property correctly, and didn't decide it was worth 50% more than the similar houses that had sold recently on the street.

Skiddaw1 said:

For what it is worth, when we last sold, we went on the market in early Feb (and accepted an offer within 2 weeks). When selling previous property we went on the market in early September (and completed the week before Christmas )

My guess is that like @Green_hopeful, this is the magic of correct selection of listing price at work. 

robatwork said:

This mythical month is when the unicorns hatch. (Yes - they hatch like birds!)

Don't wait to buy, or come to that, sell. A divorcing couple may well put their house on the market on Dec 27th, and it may be a steal as they can't wait to get rid of it.

Plenty of renters' contracts are up on Jan 1 so are looking to buy. I've sold houses around Xmas too.

I'm absolutely not waiting at all. In fact, among my family it's me that is most chomping at the bit to buy, but I'm being restrained by other family members. There is a suggestion that we pause our house search and start again in February. I was wondering when the best times to buy are and what the trade-offs will be if we wait until February. So, I'm not trying to be strategic about my search for a house time, I'm wondering what the consequences will be if my search for a house time is changed due to other factors. 

October is said to be a good time to buy, so I will raise that... and suggest full steam ahead.

Around my way it seems to be families trying to sell homes because the occupants have gone into nursing homes and they need to pay bills that is the trigger in quite a few cases. And, landlords whose tenants have given notice. These will come on the market again with a timing controlled by other factors. 

If we pause and start again, I'll be overseas on Boxing Day, so I don't know if I'll be on RightMove   

hulu72 said:

There’s no set rule as there’s too many variables, but as an agent our busiest months are probably April/May/September. April and May as there’s no major events that people focus on. September because kids have gone back to school and people want to be moved for Christmas. Worst month is definitely December, followed by August and January.

You’re probably most likely to get a good price in the autumn months as people are desperate to be sorted by Christmas. I wouldn’t take much notice of the winter months though, you generally find that people who list around December/January aren’t desperate to move. 

Boxing Day is an interesting one, we open between Christmas and New Year and the first day back after Christmas is the busiest by far of the winter months. However, we tend to find a large portion of buyers at this time are time wasters really (e.g people who have had a sudden impulse over Christmas and not really serious about moving)

Thanks. In terms of choice, then will September (which I've just seen) be as good as April/May (which I haven't seen.) If I'm not missing much during the winter months, then that makes it less of a problem if I pause like my family want me to. Though, I am reluctant to miss October in particular. 

Note: the reason my family want me to pause is because I said that I didn't want to do overseas travel if I've bought a house and am going through the legal process. Not other reasons. 

zagubov

Green_hopeful said:

Estate agents say Boxing Day is a good day for listing because people are bored of Christmas and have nothing to do other than look at Rightmove. Sample of one, I listed my house on 26 December 2016 and sold within a month. 

This worked for us. Put it on the market just after Christmas. Went away for a few days over new year and when we came back, we had an offer for the asking price.

user1977

RHemmings said:

Note: the reason my family want me to pause is because I said that I didn't want to do overseas travel if I've bought a house and am going through the legal process. Not other reasons. 

While I fear this might become the topic of yet another thread - why? Are you planning to travel for a particularly long time, and/or somewhere out of reach of phones or the internet? There's little advantage in being at home during the legal process. Obviously it makes a difference for doing the more practical things once you get to the stage of actually moving house.

RHemmings

user1977 said:

RHemmings said:

Note: the reason my family want me to pause is because I said that I didn't want to do overseas travel if I've bought a house and am going through the legal process. Not other reasons. 

While I fear this might become the topic of yet another thread - why? Are you planning to travel for a particularly long time, and/or somewhere out of reach of phones or the internet? There's little advantage in being at home during the legal process. Obviously it makes a difference for doing the more practical things once you get to the stage of actually moving house.

I'll quite likely be in places with dodgy/inconsistent internet. And electric power supply for that matter. For extended periods of times. Total travel time would be three weeks. 

There's also the other factor is that my family's favourite house at the moment would run my finances very very close to zero. I'm not sure I want to run things even closer and maybe into debt. I've never been in debt in my life before, I'm not young, and am perhaps excessively debt adverse. I have gone through getting a loan with my bank and I was surprised how cheap it would be. I've got a repayment mortgage with no early redemption charges agreed in principle. And again it's reasonable, and much less than rent. But, having lived a long debt free life the thought of going on foreign travel paying the ticket prices for Christmas travel pushing me into debt or further into debt ... I don't want to do it. 

My salary is fairly good, but I guess it would take months of having to pay extra expenses due to moving, insurance, and owning before the financial advantage of no rent would kick in and then I'd be in a good position. My finances should improve dramatically in February for other reasons (money should come in). But, even if that doesn't happen, I should be fine anyhow. In the medium and longer term. 

Getting back on topic, it's probably sensible if I wait until February because I'll be in a much better situation. But, there's this very nice house that everyone likes just sitting there... And getting my family to agree on a house is extremely difficult. 

But, the sensible thing is to pause, enjoy Christmas, and be in a better or in the very worst case not much worse position in February. However, I ... would very much like to buy a house. It's a good time to buy right now it seems as while some houses which are competitively priced sell quickly with bidding wars, there are quite a few other houses just sitting around getting their price reduced every few weeks or so. I don't want to wait and then find I'm in a much worse situation from the POV of the housing market. Hence: my first post. 

Bigphil1474

OP, you seem to be missing the obvious question - why are there particular months which are bad for selling? It could well be that one month is bad for selling because there are fewer buyers, which in turn might make that a good month for buying as there's less competition, so might pick up a bargain. As you aren't selling, you should just focus on the best time to buy. I think that all comes down to local conditions.

We're putting our house on the market on Thursday, as we are moving up the ladder, and savings on our next purchase will likely be more than anything we may or may not lose from our asking price - in our area at the moment houses over £300k are selling slowly, houses under £200k are selling quickly/ houses over £300k are having their price reduced, houses under £200k are selling at asking price. I've seen a few houses we're very interested in (online), can't wait to get ours sold so we can start viewing. Even if we don't complete until the new year, all the leg work will be done before Christmas hopefully. 

TXC

If you do sell around christmas, remember to take the decs down before you take listing photos!! Was a real ick of mine when I was looking.

ProDave

I would say the worst month to sell is the best month to buy, and likewise the best month to sell is the worst month to buy.

RHemmings

ProDave said:

I would say the worst month to sell is the best month to buy, and likewise the best month to sell is the worst month to buy.

That's what I was thinking before I posted this thread, but my thinking has changed a bit. Over and above the purchase price, selection of properties is a factor too. Bad month to sell means some home-owners, those in less hurry, may wait. 

For those home-owners who want to move, they need to both buy and sell. That might cancel out the differences for different months. 

The comment about Christmas decorations is an interesting one. I've seen a property with decorations on the house front including plant leaves and giant lizards. I thought it looked good and it would be a slight plus for me, but I can see how it would put others off. 

Dancing lit-up santas - that would ... not attract me to a home. 

Bigphil1474 said:

OP, you seem to be missing the obvious question - why are there particular months which are bad for selling? It could well be that one month is bad for selling because there are fewer buyers, which in turn might make that a good month for buying as there's less competition, so might pick up a bargain. As you aren't selling, you should just focus on the best time to buy. I think that all comes down to local conditions.

We're putting our house on the market on Thursday, as we are moving up the ladder, and savings on our next purchase will likely be more than anything we may or may not lose from our asking price - in our area at the moment houses over £300k are selling slowly, houses under £200k are selling quickly/ houses over £300k are having their price reduced, houses under £200k are selling at asking price. I've seen a few houses we're very interested in (online), can't wait to get ours sold so we can start viewing. Even if we don't complete until the new year, all the leg work will be done before Christmas hopefully. 

Yes, you're both buying and selling, and losses in sale price will be offset by savings on purchase price. Thank you for sharing your example. 

Around my way there are some properties that sell very quickly, and some that stick around. I haven't noticed a price band which sells quicker than others. 

As before, I don't really have the ability to pick and choose my buying time. I just want to know what the consequences of waiting until February will be. As that appears to be likely