Spring will be here soon and maybe you’re thinking about selling your home. Conventional wisdom says spring is the best time to sell a home – but is it truly the best time to put a home on the market in the KC area? When it comes down to it, the best time to sell your home is determined by its location.
It’s important – determining the best month to list your home for sale is critical to maximizing the final sale price, experts say. And because real estate is local, listing a home for sale in March in Liberty might mean a higher sale price, while listing in Leawood that same month could mean you’ll lose some cash.
Of course, you should first consult a local real estate expert, such as Kansas City real estate broker Team RE, to find out what the market looks like in your zip code or neighborhood and get his or her opinion on the best time to sell your home for maximum profit. But if you’re not ready to make that call yet, Zillow’s online Owner Dashboard tool can help.
The Zillow Owner Dashboard – www.zillow.com/sellerlanding/claimyourhome – is a quick way to determine which month is best to list a house in your area and predicts what might be your selling price now vs. the best month to sell. The tool can estimate your home’s value and then help you analyze the seasonal sale patterns of homes in your local area, based on the month they were first listed on Zillow.
Zillow’s tool tries to help potential home owners determine the best month to sell in their local market by using historical listing, transaction and “Zestimate” (Zillow’s estimated value placed on roughly 100 million homes nationwide) data to calculate the extent to which different listing months will influence the home’s final sale price. The tool uses data from individual zip codes to help determine the best month to list an individual home and calculate just how much more – or less – listing a home for sale in one month versus another will get the seller.
To determine the best month to sell, Zillow says it groups homes by the month they were first listed and then calculates how much those homes tend to sell for compared to their Zestimate. Zillow calculates this information for each zip code, so the monthly/seasonal pattern for a specific home comes from local market activity.
Zillow has collected home sales data from 2008 to present. Using this data, they compute a price-to-Zestimate ratio for every transaction. So if a home sells for $200,000 and had a Zestimate of $190,000, that means it sold for 5% more than its Zestimate, for a price-to-Zestimate ratio of 1.05. If all homes listed in March systematically have a higher ratio than other months, this would indicate a strong month to list your home, according to Zillow Research.
To customize data to every home, Zillow takes each home’s Zestimate and multiplies it by the seasonal factors for that home’s zip code and home type. So if a single-family home in zip code 66215 has a Zestimate of $500,000 and similar homes listed in that ZIP code have a price-to-Zestimate ratio of 1.03, that homeowner might make an extra $15,000 over listing their home in the typical month.
Trying to figure out the right time to sell can be stressful, but it also can help you maximize the sale price of your home. By using the Zillow Owner Dashboard tool and the advice of a professional real estate agent, you can make a more thoughtful, savvy decision about timing your listing.
When you decide to sell, call your local team of real estate experts at Team RE, Kansas City real estate broker. We can help take the guesswork and the stress out of selling your home. You can trust us to use our expertise and knowledge of the local market to determine when to list your home for maximum profit – and we will sell it for 5% to 18% above the average selling price! Visit us online or call your Kansas City real estate broker, Team RE, today at 913.451.5711.