Selling your home is a big decision, and it’s easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of presenting your property in the best possible way to prospective buyers. However, what you might not realise is that you can actually change your chances of success according to nothing more than the time of year in which you decide to sell.
To make sure that you choose the right season to put your London property on the market and take advantage of record prices, here is a quick guide to how annual trends impact demand and other associated factors.
Spring is the optimal season for selling
Spring is the season of new beginnings, so it is perhaps unsurprising that this is generally regarded as the best time to sell your home, whether you are based in the capital or anywhere else in the UK.
If you want to be even more precise, March tends to be the best month for home sales, especially if you are looking to make a quick sale. And of course a speedy sale is even easier to achieve if you work with a firm based in London to expedite proceedings.
There are a number of factors at play here; the improving weather conditions makes buyers more willing to get out and about, and there is generally more appeal to any property if the sun is shining, the temperatures are mild and the greenery in the garden is in full bloom.
Summer holidays disrupt the market
While you can sell a house and move out of London in July and September, August is a month to avoid because it coincides with the peak of the summer holiday season. This means that far fewer people are in the market for a home during this period, and you may be equally unwilling to disrupt your life to achieve this.
That is not to say that selling in August is impossible; you just need to prepare yourself for the likelihood that it will take a little longer than usual.
Autumn is adequate
The early autumn months of September and October are not a bad time to sell up in London and move elsewhere, since the kids are back to school and people are generally in a more switched-on frame of mind, contemplating their next steps.
November is also adequate as an option, and if you do not have as much flexibility as you would like, then putting your house on the market at the tail end of autumn can be considered.
Winter will cause you problems
Just like the holidays in August make the housing market less amenable to sellers, during December and January you will find that there is even less activity in this arena because of the Christmas and New Year festivities.
People not only have social obligations to fulfil, but will also have less cash to spare and so will not usually be scouting out houses. Furthermore the inclement weather makes properties less appealing.
In short, if you have the ability to choose when you sell, spring should be the season you aim for, and winter the one you avoid.
