The Herd Mentality in Real Estate

Here are a few interesting facts regarding how our real estate market adjusts for seasonality and how that changes for Property Sellers.  Most people feel that June is the best single month of the year for real estate sales.  If you are simply to browse the total number of properties selling in a given month you would probably be correct, however there is much more to it than the total number of sales.

As an example the total number of residential properties that close per day in June is about 40.  The total number of properties that close in December is 30, which represents a 25% decline in properties selling the last month of the year as compared to June.  When digging into the numbers you would also see that starting in about July fewer and fewer properties come on the market and by the time December gets here there are at least 25% fewer properties on the market than in June.  Less competition is always a good thing for property sellers.

In my experience, we also see a typically higher quality Buyers viewing properties after "beach season" is over and they have a primary focus of finding a quality property, not going to the beach.

Lastly, if your property is a second home that you rent out then accessibility is far greater after vacation season ends and it is easier to get those high-quality, qualified buyers in to see the property.

Don't be fooled by the Herd and 1980's thinking that real estate sales stop in September or October.  The Grand Strand has grown up and has a great population to support year-round real estate traffic, plus the popularity of consumer sites like realtor.com, Zillow and homes.com make searching for your next property easy to start no matter the month.

For an in depth discussion on this topic feel free to reach out to me anytime.