I read an article this morning that quoted data from Attom Data Solutions. They examined 27,000,000 sales of homes and condos over a 7 year period to try to find the best times and even days to buy a home.
Experienced Realtors have always known that historically the period of November through January are when property days on the market is highest and deals can be found. Unfortunately, these are also the times when many owners take properties off market for the holidays and anticipating a slow season.
Attom drilled down a little deeper and determined the best days of the year to buy are December 4th and January 26th. Their data confirmed that December was the best month to buy, followed by November then January. I find it interesting that certain days jumped out in the data, I would have thought the week following the 20th of December would be the best, followed by Thanksgiving week.
In the current 2020 downtown market it will be interesting to see if the customary patterns hold true. Based on our activity during the year of Corona virus, we have seen the downtown market flatten out with price decreases in some product lines. With investor and second home buyers holding their cards until a break in positivity rates, days on market are likely to continue at their current pace. As little inventory of new product appears to be coming on line, existing buildings with established infrastructures and lower tax rates should continue to be attractive to most buyers. The questions of return of workers to the downtown market and comfort with living in density in a post-Covid world will start to be answered in 2021.