This is the best month of the year in which to sell your house according to a property specialist

If you're planning on selling your house, January could be the best month to do so, according to data from Lightstone.

According to the property information specialist, houses listed in January spent an average of 75 days on the market, and also had the highest chance of achieving the list price, at 85%.

This means that, on average, a property listed at R2 million, sold for R1.7 million.

The second best month for both minimising time on the market and achieving list price was July, Lightstone said.

The worst month to sell you house, as you might imagine, is December, followed by November and March.

The study was compiled using data from 2015 to 2023.

Time on the market also varies significantly between cities, with houses in Nelson Mandela Bay selling the fastest, at an average of 55 days, during the aforementioned time period.

Second was Buffalo City (formerly East London), where properties took 59 days to sell, followed by Cape Town, at 65 days, while Johannesburg lagged far behind other major metros at 80 days.

“Lightstone analysed the days between listing and sale of property in the years 2015 to 2023, and perhaps the most immediate observation is that the gap between the City of Cape Town and City of Johannesburg in 2023 was widening again.

“Loadshedding, SOE failures and poor economic activity negatively disrupted the property market in 2019, when time on the market was the highest in the period under review at between 110 and 120 days.

“The norm in the years 2017-2018, and 2020-2022 had been between around 60-80 days for Cape Town, and between 70-90 days for Johannesburg. By the end of 2023, though, Johannesburg was nudging 100 days while Cape Town was dropping below 80. The national average was 90. The data continues to signal the strength of Cape Town (and the Western Cape) over Johannesburg (and Gauteng) in the market,” Lightstone added.

The company also released insights for the year 2024, showing that around 60% of houses sold last year achieved 90% or more of their listed price, while 7% were purchased at less than 75% of their asking price.

Also, nearly 60% of houses put on the market in 2024 sold within three months, with 30% of these sales taking place within one month and a further 17% within two months.

IOL