August 23, 2019
Realtors Have Determined the Best Day to List a Property
When it comes down to it, the real estate market—like any market—is a sort of sociological entity: a combination of the psychologies of many individuals spread out over the collective whole of a given boundary-place, and pertaining to certain needs and desires (for our purposes, the desires to sell and to purchase a home). Naturally this field of economic activity will be affected by various factors, such as location, income, advancements in technology, the availability of mortgage options—the list goes on. But there are interesting commonalities that develop no matter the place or mortgage rate—so long as state of the art technology is used. And it turns out that (given today’s technology), there is a specific day of the week that realtors have determined is the very best day to list a property.
According to a Redfin Corporation report, the psychology works like this: People tend to remember best the information they saw last. It’s a phenomenon called the “serial-position effect,” which also favors information seen first, and spells doom for basically everything in the middle. Because there’s practically no structural control for what day of the week people enter into their search for a property, the first-position element is practically nullified for purposes of listing a home (and Mondays, it turns out, is the worst for price advantage). But there’s a natural stop-point built into the way people shop for homes for the most part: the weekend.
Before you go presuming the best day of the week to list will therefore be Friday, though, take note: it can take a little bit of time for a listing to percolate through the system used by realtors who select the homes to show to prospective buyers on the weekend.
The best day of the week, therefore, in 2019, to list?
Thursday.
A Thursday listing increases the chances prospective buyers will see the home you list as a “new home for you” right before they go on their weekend search. According to Redfin, this results in homes listed on Thursdays selling quickest on average, and leads to sellers getting an average $3,015 more in the final sales price than they would have made otherwise.
Of course, there’s another psychological element at play in the market: the search for sales advantage. Now that this information has been published, the likelihood of realtors posting listings on Thursdays will increase exponentially—and this may, within a matter of just a few years (or perhaps even months), erase the Thursday advantage.
At Topouzis & Associates, P.C., our goal is to put our considerable experience and expertise to use in ensuring that any title we service is issued to buyers clear of defect. Contact us if you want our professional judgment, backed up with a solid insurance plan.
