Which is the best month to sell your Northampton home?

I had a landlord from Upton email me the other day and she said she had been following my blog (the NorthamptonProperty Market Blog) for a while and wanted to pick my brain on when is the best time of the year to sell her property. Trying to calculate the best time to put your Northampton property on the market can often seem something akin to witchcraft and, whilst I would agree that there are particular times of the year that can prove more productive than others, there are plenty of factors that need to be taken into consideration.

Even if you are putting your property on the market, you don’t know how long it will take to find a buyer - no crystal ball to help with that one. At the moment the latest set of figures for all 74 estate agents in Northampton, show the average length of time it takes to find a buyer for any Northampton property is as follows…

Detached              81 days

Semi                     57 days

Terraced               82 days

Flat                     121 days

Overall average    85 days 

If we roll the clock back to January 2016, the overall average time it took to find a buyer (again using data from all of the 74 Northampton Estate Agents) was 103 days.

So, on the face of it, things have vastly improved over the last six months or so. Well, when I looked at the data going back to 2009, and every Spring since then, the average length of time it takes to sell a property drops between January and the Summer months, for it to rise on the run up to Christmas. For example..

Winter 2009 - 151 days           Summer 2009  - 141 days

and in more recent times …

Winter 2013 - 138 days           Summer 2013  - 124 days

Winter 2014 - 119 days           Summer 2014  - 102 days

Winter 2015 - 105 days           Summer 2015  -  99 days

Coming back to the present, even if you placed your property on the market today in Northampton, it if it takes you on average a little over twelve weeks to find a buyer, then you can expect solicitors and the chain to take an additional eight and twelve weeks after that, before you move. It comes down to personal choice as to when you place your property on the market.

There are times of the year when it's better to sell, and times when waiting a little longer can pay off in the long run. In a nutshell, I would say this is the way of the seasons ..

WHEN THE MARKET?

Spring: Customarily there are more house-buyers as the Daffodils show themselves

Summer: Sellers may miss out on house-buyers being on holiday

Autumn: The enthusiasm for buying homes returns

Winter: Interest diminishes as festive period looms 

What this means to buyers and landlord investors is that they often pick up a bargain in later months of the year, as there is less competition from owner occupiers. So, whilst there are better months to achieve a quicker sale, the only piece of advice I can give to every home  owner and landlord in Northampton, is do the right thing for yourself, do your homework and buy (and sell) with both your head as well as your heart!