I had a homeowner
from Plants Green email me the other day. She said she had been following my
blog (the Warminster Property Market Blog)
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 Warminster 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 estate agents in
Warminster, show the average length of time it takes to find a buyer for any Warminster
property is as follows ..
Detached 176 days
Semi
82 days
Terraced 50 days
Flat
74 days
Overall average 126 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 Warminster
Estate Agents) was 118 days.
So, on the face of it, things have haven’t improved over
the last six months or so. But, when I looked at the data going back to 2008,
the average length of time it takes to sell a property usually drops between
January and the Summer months, for it to rise on the run up to Christmas. For
example ..
Winter
2008 - 133 days Summer 2008 - 108 days
and in more recent times …
Winter 2013 - 179 days Summer
2013 - 169 days
Winter
2014 - 151 days Summer 2014 - 93
days
Winter
2015 - 117 days Summer 2015 - 91
days
Coming back to the present, even if you placed your
property on the market today in Warminster, if it takes you on average eighteen
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
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 Warminster, is do the right thing for yourself, do your
homework and buy (and sell) with both your head as well as your heart.
