Everyone knows that location plays a big part in a property’s value, but few know that the “time of listing” is as important when putting a house up for sale. While we can not change the location of a house we are selling, we have the ability to decide when we list it for sale.

Listing a house at the right time can improve the time it takes to sell a home as well as raise the sales price. Here are some of the best times to sell your home, according to data from Zillow and Redfin. 

Season: Spring

It has long been common knowledge among real estate agents that people generally start looking for homes when the holiday season comes to an end, and the weather becomes more pleasant to be outdoors. Spring brings back the leaves and perennial plants, boosting the curb appeal. And for parts of the United States with very cold winters, spring brings back more movement and many families also start looking for homes before summer vacation begins. 

Depending on where you are in the country, spring starts at different times. Sellers in the south might want to list their house as early as February or March, while sellers in the north might want to wait a bit longer to put up their listings. 

The alternative to listing in the spring would be to list in the fall. And contrary to popular belief, depending on where you are geographically in the country, summer is generally not the best time to sell a house because people typically spend the season vacationing. There are also parts of the country where it gets too hot in the summer for buyers to want to go outdoors to house hunt. 

Month: May

Nationwide, the best time to sell a house is in the month of May. In fact, houses that listed for sale in the first half of May sold almost two weeks faster and for 1.2% more than the average listing, according to a study by Zillow. 

The first half of May was the best time to list in 14 of the 24 largest markets analyzed by Zillow. However, while the average home listed in May earned a premium of $2,400, homes that were listed in San Franciso in the last half of April earned a 1.7% premium, which comes out to about $15,300. 

Day: Thursday

You will have to pray to get the best price if you list your house on Sunday. According to a study conducted by Redfin, homes listed on a Sunday not only sold slower but also sold for less. 

Redfin analyzed 100,000 homes that sold in 2017 and found that homes that were listed on a Wednesday sold for $2,023 more than a home listed on Sunday. The analysts also found that homes listed on a Thursday sold 5 days faster than homes listed on a Sunday. 

They speculated that Wednesday and Thursday were the best days to list because that’s when buyers typically start looking for houses they plan to see over the weekend. 

“Serious buyers typically start making their weekend house-hunting plans late in the workweek,” a Redfin agent said in the study. “You want your home to be one of the fresh listings buyers see pop up as they decide which homes they should see over the weekend.”

However, just because the average home sells well on one day nationally, doesn’t mean it will fare as well on that day locally. For example, sellers who live in big cities may want to list their house on a Tuesday, when broker’s open houses are common. 

Local Markets May Vary

If you live in a completely average house, the best time to list it for sale it would seem is the second Thursday in May. For everyone else, it is important to talk to your local real estate agent to find out the best time to list a house in your area. 

There isn’t enough that can be said about the term ‘Presentation is everything.’ The reality is, no matter how good something is if it doesn’t present well it will be grossly undervalued. If you’re selling your old bike on craigslist, losing out on an extra 10 bucks due to poor presentation may not be the biggest deal, but when you’re selling a house, poor presentation (staging) can result in losing out on tens of thousands of dollars. Who can afford to lose out on that kind of money?

This is why any knowledgeable real estate agent will push you to focus on staging so that your house presents well. In fact, there’s an entire staging industry where expert stagers doll up your house to ensure you get top dollar. However, between the stagers fee, furniture rentals, and touch-ups, it can cost more money than is in your marketing budget. This leads many to undertake frugal projects on their home to maximize their homes’ presentation value. 

Before frugal projects are executed, however,  the best path is to first execute staging strategies that don’t cost any money and then assess with your real estate agent what the next steps are in prepping your home for live showings.

1. Reassess Your Furniture 

We’re not suggesting taking money out of your pocket to buy or rent new furniture, that wouldn’t be free. Rather, we are referring to eliminating certain items and adjusting furniture layouts. To make our homes comfortable and livable, we often hang on to comfortable furniture that may not look nice and have more pieces than necessary. In staging, less is more, the first step is to assess which are your nicest pieces and storing the rest elsewhere. Next, you should arrange your furniture in a way that flows rather than what’s most comfortable or convenient.

2. Declutter

Clutter not only makes rooms look less appealing, but it’s also distracting. Selling your home is a great time to rid yourself of all the clutter you don’t need. As for the rest, find somewhere to stow it away so that it’s not visible. As mentioned before, less is more, you want to use a minimalist approach when staging your home and keep the look as clean and fresh as possible.

3. Remove All Personal Items

For a buyer to consider a home, they have to visualize themselves in it. Family portraits and items on the fridge or corkboard all make it very difficult to achieve that endeavor. This doesn’t mean leave your walls bare, tasteful art is ok. However, any item that traces directly to you (mainly family photos) should be taken down and stowed out of sight so that prospective buyers can fully visualize themselves there and fall in love with your house.

4. Remove Extra Storage

There’s a little hoarder inside all of us. As we accumulate more items we implore creative storage solutions. These include hanging shoe racks on your closet door, plastic storage bins, and a whole host of other solutions. If prospective buyers see these eyesores, it will subconsciously tell them that the house doesn’t have sufficient storage to meet their needs. Eliminate all storage solutions that aren’t built into the fabric of the house.

So, you did a deep clean of your entire house before the first buyer came to see it. You scrubbed and swept and even got on your hands and knees to wipe behind things that no one will ever see. Now comes the hard part: keeping it that way.

Anyone who has ever sold their house will tell you there is a big difference between “clean” and “show-ready clean.” A show-ready home is supposed to sparkle. And if you are looking to sell, your home might have to sparkle for several weeks or even months.

Don’t worry, here are a few simple ways to ensure your house is always show-ready without driving yourself too crazy.

Pare Down What You Don’t Need

It will be much easier to clean your house when it’s not full of a bunch of junk you don’t want anyway. If you haven’t used something in the past year, what are the chances you will use it next year? If you can’t stand to part with it, find a place to store it where buyers can’t see it.

Pro tip: Since you’re about to move soon anyway, try to get as much packing done as you can. Buyers will appreciate seeing a closet full of boxes more than a room full of clutter.

Clean Smarter, Not Harder

The easiest way to keep a house clean is to create a routine and stick to it. Split the week up into chunks and do small cleans every few days and a big clean just before the weekend. You can focus on 1 room for a few days or spend 5 minutes cleaning each room every day.

If you are struggling to keep the whole house sparkling, focus your energy on the kitchen and bathroom. These are the most important rooms to keep clean because buyers will consider any mess to be unhygienic. Remember, buyers are already anxious about being in a stranger’s house, and the whole point is to make them feel at home.

Pro tip: Make sure all the visible garbage cans have lids. Hiding your trash is one of the easiest ways to make your place look and smell cleaner.

Designate “Dirty Rooms” & “Clean Rooms”

The more space you need to clean, the longer it will take. So, don’t use a room unless you have to. Then, all it will take to make these “clean rooms” sparkle is a light dusting, sweeping, and maybe a quick wipe with a rag.

If you have more than one bathroom, designate one to be a “dirty room” that everyone uses. If you have kids, make them keep their toys in their room. Also, try to pack certain toys like Legos away for a while if you can. If you have pets, keep their dirty paws out of as many rooms as possible.

Pro Tip: Place bins or bags at the entrance of every “dirty room.” This way, if a buyer wants to see the place on short notice, you can gather up all the clutter in that room and store it away instantly.

Make Cleaning Fun

If Marry Poppins was able to make those English kids clean their room with a spoonful of sugar, why can’t you do the same? Go ahead, blast your happy music, and turn your cleaning routine into a dance routine. Keeping your house clean is only a chore if you make it that way.

You can trick a competitive partner into cleaning by making it seem like a game. See how quick you can clean a room, then challenge them to beat that record. Or start the first annual “cleaning Olympics,” with special prizes for the winners.

Pro Tip: You might not need to give your kids much of an incentive to help out. Often times you can get your kids to clean up after themselves just by making them feel needed and appreciated for their efforts.

Stay Somewhere Else

When all else fails, and you need a break, you can always pack your bags and stay somewhere else. You can take a real vacation and get some much-needed relaxation, or you can book a night at a local hotel where you don’t have to clean up after yourself for a little while.

In the end, you’re probably not going to have your house as clean as you expect, but the longer you can get the buyer to focus on the space and not your mess, the quicker you can make the sale.