In Silicon Valley, we have pretty decent weather all year, at least most years. The climate doesn’t make selling your house or condo especially hard at any time, though of course there are seasonal variances and it can be harder to get qualified buyers in during the holidays than on a sunny day in March.
The common wisdom in the San Jose area or the greater San Francisco Bay Area is that February through April tends to be the best time to find or to sell residential real estate, as opposed to late summer or the depths of winter, such as they are.
Often the early months of every year find us with more buyers than sellers. That is especially the case now, but even in a more normal market, that’s what we see. That supply and demand situation often causes home prices to rise in the early months of the year. As the year goes on, more sellers tend to bring their homes to the market as buyers back off. (Many sellers think that the best time to put a home on the market is summer, but the buyers tend to be more active a bit earlier in the year.) So as the balance tips a little more in the buyers’ favor, prices frequently either level off or even decline a bit from the peak of spring.
The National Association of Realtors came out with a study that broke it into quarters (for which the Feb – April window straddles both the 1st and 2nd quarters). Here it’s pretty clear that the 2nd quarter offers the highest median sales price. Homes which close escrow then (April – June) actually went under contract between March and May in most cases, or approximately 30 days earlier.
If the data were presented by month, I believe we’d see that February – April is the best window overall. Your particular market in Los Gatos, Cupertino, Sunnyvale or elsewhere could be different. It could also vary depending on price point or school district.
My real time experience is that sales just a little earlier than most sellers expect is the ideal time. Less competition usually means better pricing for home owners. (Just recently I had 17 offers on a listing in the Santa Teresa area of San Jose – and it was a February sale.)
Interested in selling your Silicon Valley home? Please call or email me and we can set up a confidential, no obligation consultation.
