Which is the best month to sell your Sheffield home?

I had a homeowner from Beauchief email me the other day. She said she had been following my blog (the Sheffield Property Market Blog) for a while and wanted to pick my brain on when is the best time of the year to sell a property. Trying to calculate the best time to put your Sheffield 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 94 estate agents in Sheffield, show the average length of time it takes to find a buyer for any Sheffield property is as follows ..

Detached 147 days

Semi 125 days

Terraced  117 days

Flat  172 days

Overall average  140 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 94 Sheffield Estate Agents) was 173 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 – 202 days

Summer 2009 – 180 days

and in more recent times:

Winter 2013 – 209 days

Summer 2013 – 183 days

Winter 2014 – 182 days

Summer 2014 – 173 days

Winter 2015 – 176 days

Summer 2015  – 153 days

Coming back to the present, even if you placed your property on the market today in Sheffield, if it takes you on average twenty 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. Children often affect the decision. On one side you might delay putting that for sale board in your front garden so you can move in the summer school holidays, but on the other side, you might want to move sooner to be in the catchment area of a preferred school, in plenty of time for the next academic year?

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 TO 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 Sheffield, is do the right thing for yourself, do your homework and buy (and sell) with both your head as well as your heart

For more thoughts on the Sheffield Property Market, visit the Sheffield Property Market Blog,  https://sheffieldpropertyblog.com