This Week: “Nothing Sells in August!”

This is one of those often repeated bits of real estate “wisdom,” propagated by real estate professionals and hobbyists alike (maybe we just want to take the months off?). It is as easy to repeat as the “your first offer is your best offer” bit of counsel to sellers. But…is it true?

This is a graph showing For Sale/Sold/Pending (in escrow, but not yet sold) residential properties from Spring through Summer 2010, prices from $300,000 – $3,000,000.

We know that most properties take 4-6 weeks to close once under contract, so should look at August and September. We see that 889 properties went under contract in August, and 869 closed escrow (a large number of those had gone under contract previous to August, of course). In September, 792 properties closed escrow. There is a high likelihood that the majority of them went under contract in August.

I included April, May, June, and July so that would-be adherents to the “nothing sells in August” myth will have the data they need to argue that 869 and 792 are relatively “nothing.”

As an agent who has represented happy sellers and buyers in August, I respectfully disagree.