When you have time to sell your home, you can list it on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and wait for the ideal buyer to snap it up. That rare situation sounds ideal, but most homeowners must sell their homes relatively quickly. It helps to know during which season most homes sell in Phoenix.
Most US locations experience a slowdown in sales during January and February, but that doesn’t happen in Phoenix due to its balmy weather. Like many areas of the country, Phoenix’s top sales months come during spring and summer – May and June.
List Your Home in Spring for Best Quick Sale Results
To sell your Phoenix home, list your house on the MLS in early to mid-spring, according to HomeLight.com. This offers potential buyers time to visit your open house, get their mortgage pre-approval and approval, and make an offer before the late spring sales rush. Last year’s sales deviated from this because October had the quickest sales.
Of course, that doesn’t mean your home won’t sell if you list it during a different time of year. Late spring and early summer simply make the busiest time for home sales. Families needing to move can visit open houses outside their city during that time because their children take spring break and summer vacation. Taking advantage of this fact can mean you get multiple offers on your home, which could result in a bidding war, according to Opendoor.
The timing of peak sales coincides with when kids don’t have to miss school to visit potential homes. This spring/summer purchase period also works to the advantage of the buyers since they enjoy the summer in their new city, settling in a bit before their children need to start school. Most families want to move into their new home during the first month of summer so they have downtime to set up their home to their liking.
List Your Home in Late Summer for the Best Price
When you have time to let the house sit on the market for the best price, list it in August. Typically, home sales in Phoenix require about three months to complete the entire process. Listing in August improves the likelihood of selling by November, the month of top prices in Phoenix. Homes sold during November brought an extra 2.69 percent in the purchase price.
What’s up with that, you ask? It’s pretty simple. Home buyers who received word after school started that work will transfer them or that they’ve landed a new job need to move during the three-week-long December holiday vacation that US public schools provide. They have to move on short notice, and the late fall/early winter typically offers fewer homes for sale, and the home sellers obtain better offers. Home buyers willingly pay more to quickly obtain appropriate housing and move in with their families before school starts. December provides the second-highest house prices in Phoenix for the same reasons.
What If You Need to Sell Super Quick?
You also have a great option if you need to sell your Phoenix home on a quick turnaround today. Contact an investment buyer, also referred to as an iBuyer. These companies, like ITSSOLDAZ, advertise that “We buy houses in Phoenix” on short notice.
That means you don’t have to fix the porch or re-roof the home to impress homebuyers. The iBuyer purchases the house then renovates it or makes the minor fixes you don’t have time to make, whichever makes the home appropriate for sale.
With an iBuyer, you won’t land the family desperate to make an exorbitant offer. You might get an offer beneath fair market value because you won’t have to repair anything. During a typical home sales process, you’d have to repair everything around the home first, then paint the whole house. After that, you’d pay for professional cleaning and staging, then host open houses until your home sold. Because the iBuyer does all those things, freeing you from doing them, their offers come in lower than standard buyers. Most articles neglect to point out that difference.
If you have already renovated your home, your iBuyer offer will remain closer to fair market value. You will concede a tiny bit of money for the fast sale, but you’ll have the cash to purchase a new home. Unlike the typical purchase process, which takes an average of 104 days in Arizona, selling to an iBuyer lets you complete the home sale in two weeks. If you need to sell today to move in a few weeks, this method provides the best compromise of a quick sale and a reasonable price.
When You’re the Buyer, Too
Remember that if you’re also buying a new home to replace the one you’re selling, all of these factors apply to you in the opposite way. If you want to purchase a home for less money and don’t mind the sale taking a few months, you should purchase your new home during the off-season.
Doing so lets you make lower offers for potential homes. You’ll have fewer homes on the market, which means not as many choices, but you could also end up with a great deal on a home that provides a lot more house than you could usually afford.
Start your home search with the homes that have been listed the longest. You might find a home that didn’t sell because it had a tenant at the time of listing, but once that tenant purchased their new home, you nabbed a great house. Homes sell faster when empty, so always ask what changed before buying.
Sell Your Phoenix Home When It Best Suits You
You can sell a home in Phoenix year around and still get an excellent price. Choose your method and enjoy the process.