The Huffington Post (“Huffpo” to its friends) has an entire section devoted to real estate doings. Although the vast majority of those dispatches are tidbits about awesomely expensive celebrity condos in Manhattan, sometimes the Huffpo editors’ attention wanders momentarily to other matters. Last month they uncovered a study which delved into a topic of interest to any local homeowner who’s been thinking about when to enter the northwest listings.
The best time to sell a house, according to the study, is, specifically, RIGHT NOW!!!!
That is, between May 1 and May 15!
Or maybe not.
The picture for Portland was a little less definite than the Big Picture claim that “homes that sold in the first half of May…sold, on average, around 1.5 days faster than homes that weren’t listed in that timeframe.” It turns out that the study, which was put together by Zillow, was wishy-washy when it came to specifying individual areas. The “on average” part of the claim makes the conclusion less conclusive.
Because the sales statistics that were analyzed were collected from all over the country—differences in seasonality was given as the reason why any individual region might not line up with the average. Seasonality was what we think of as weather. And since weather is not the same everywhere…
In other words, the best time to sell a house in the Portland Metro Area might not expire at the end of this week, after all. There’s no need to panic if you plan to list your own property but haven’t quite put the place in show condition. The window isn’t going to slam shut on Sunday. The reason for the uncertainty about the best time to sell your house specifically here in Portland (in addition to seasonality) has to do with data smoothing and suppression. The study went into how data experts apply those to raw numbers before reaching a conclusion—but since they weren’t going to be able to zero in on the best time to sell a house in Oregon, let’s skip those details.
It was noted that the entire month of May is a good time to sell your house, in most areas. That’s something everyone can agree with. In fact, the whole spring selling season is universally recognized in those terms—the Huffington Post included.
Meantime, we here will be doing our best to continue to make right now a very good time to sell your home. That will begin to happen as soon as you give us a call!
Craig Reger Group
503.893.2022
We sell more because we do more.