The Truth About Timing the Market

Think spring is the best time to list your home? The data says otherwise.

In this episode, Mike and Rachael break down 9 years of market trends to reveal when sellers actually get top dollar - and why waiting until April or May could cost you thousands.

What we cover:

→ Why February is the "new spring" (and how to work backwards from closed sale data)

→ The 60-day reset strategy that turned a 5-month dead listing into a 48-hour full-price sale

→ How competition crushes your price when everyone lists at the same time

→ The one property type you should NEVER list early

→ Why "list it next week" sellers almost always leave money on the table

Bottom line: The best time to sell is before everybody else does. This episode shows you how.

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Transcript

Mike Novak:

dead wrong.

[0:33] All right, today we're talking about timing the market and how most sellers get this completely

Rachael Novak:

[0:41] That's right. We have, as we're into the second, almost the third week of January, there have

been a lot of conversations that we've been having with past clients, with new clients, with people

that are interested in potentially selling this year, and we're going to be One of the recurring themes

has been, when should we list, right? If you have flexibility, I had a couple of this last weekend, are

we listing too soon by trying to list the first week of February? Another client said, you know, should

we wait till April or May until we list, right? And that's what we want to talk about. We want to talk

about the truth about this and the timing the market, the way that people understand it and the way

that it actually is.

Mike Novak:

[1:23] Yeah. And so obviously people listen to our podcast across the whole country, and some of

this is going to be relevant to our specific market. But what I would encourage you to do is study

the trends in your market. And we'll talk about some of those trends that you can go look at

because we've studied data for years to come up with this analysis of what really actually happens

in our own market. And that's what you want to do for your buyers and sellers, too, is like really

understand what are the trends, because the reality is almost every single market has some

degree of seasonality to it. And if you think that there's not some strategy that should be applied to

that for your sellers, you're definitely leaving some money on the table for them.

Rachael Novak:

[2:02] Absolutely. That's such a great point, because I think about, you know, our friends in the

Midwest and especially the northern part of the middle of the country. They are not selling houses

in January and February when they got eight feet of snow, you know, so definitely absolutely

applicable. So, like you said, do your research. Like you said, over the last nine years, we've seen

the cyclical trends every single year in our market. So we know when things are selling for the

most. We are seeing appreciation rise more during certain times of year than others. So that's what

we really wanted to talk about. So as Mike said, definitely do the research in your own market. Butthis is really relevant to West Coast, but especially the Pacific Northwest up in Washington State

here.

Mike Novak:

[2:40] Yeah. And hopefully this gives you some ideas on what to talk to your clients about. But for

us, the first one is February is really the new spring. Like everyone in real estate has always talked

about the spring selling market. And it's kind of a myth. Like in our market, you know, again, we've

looked at a lot of data. And if you look at the peak closed price, the closed average price for our

market, it always is May. Like sometimes it's April as well.

Rachael Novak:

[3:06] Yeah.

Mike Novak:

[3:06] And we need to keep in mind, this is on closed sales. Like that's the part that most people

miss. They're like, well, the peak was in May. So I want to list in May. Well, that's not right because

that actually takes, you know, right now the days on the market average on market is 40 days,

right? So it takes the time to get your home ready to go to the market, the market exposure time,

and then at least a 30-day escrow to get it close. So you're talking like two and a half months

before that closed sale actually happened that this home came on and was exposed to the market.

Rachael Novak:

[3:33] Exactly. So you have to work backwards, right? So seeing that that peak appreciation time,

that peak number is in late April or May. You go a month or six weeks prior to that and you're talking

the end of February. You're talking March. That's what we're talking about. So, you know, getting

your home on the mark in the Pacific Northwest in February, in the beginning of March, that is the

new spring. That's exactly when you want it on and why.

Mike Novak:

[3:58] In May of last year and the year before, it was like really obvious that like the market changed

in May. It was like, wow, like where did all the buyers go?

Rachael Novak:

[4:09] Yeah, like the braces got pumped.

Mike Novak:

[4:12] That was the selling season. It was just like, wow, that was a really noticeable pullback on

activity. We saw it with showings going down, saw it with inventory going up, longer days on

market. It happened in 24, it happened in 25 as well. And it less so in 2020 and 2021 and things

like that when the market was really, really strong. But in these slower markets or more normal

markets per se, it becomes very important to track these trends.

Rachael Novak:

[4:38] Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, part of this is like the people who have been looking, like the

people who want to move early, the people who understand kind of how this works, they are

capturing demand before inventory floods the market, right? So buyers coming in, those are thepeople that have been looking that probably took a break, and we'll talk about that in a second, and

then are coming back into the market. So there's definitely still high demand. I think what a lot of

people think and the misconception for sellers is that, well, all the buyers want to wait until, you

know, the flowers are blooming and the property looks its best in May. Right. And the reality is that,

yes, buyers will like that, but that's not going to sway them to buy a house.

Mike Novak:

[5:26] Right so yeah and that's a good segue to the second one you know that buyers really re-

engage after the holidays are over um and it's noticeable like you know this we're making this we're

shooting this video on this podcast january 20th so we're 20 days into this market and into this

month and what have we seen so far well we've seen a really noticeable increase in buyer activity

right and some that's fueled by the rates coming down but a lot of it is just like the pure seasonality

like there's this date in people's minds that once you round the new year the Holidays are now

over, and I still want to buy a house.

Rachael Novak:

[5:57] Yep.

Mike Novak:

[5:58] And as a seller, you want to capitalize on that thinking and that emotion, right? People get

distracted during the holidays. People don't want to buy when there's Thanksgiving and Christmas

and holiday parties. They just enjoy themselves and they don't even think about buying a house.

Rachael Novak:

[6:12] Exactly.

Mike Novak:

[6:12] Yeah. And you're exposed to the market over the holidays. Like, you know, some of our

strategies have been pulling homes off in like October or early November and then reintroducing

them like at the end of January. You know, like that's worked as well, just because it's like the

homes typically sell really fast because buyers are back in the market all of a sudden.

Rachael Novak:

[6:33] That's exactly right. Yeah. I mean, buyers who, like I was kind of mentioning, like buyers who

were shopping in the fall and maybe they didn't have a deal to come together. Maybe the right

home didn't come on the market for them, even though there was a little bit more inventory. We

saw a lot of homes come off the market. Like traditionally speaking, 1231 is the biggest listing

expiration day of the entire year, right? For whatever reason, people sign listings all spring and

through the summer and expire at the end of the year. So we see a huge decrease in inventory

immediately on 1-1. And so buyers coming in who have already been in the market, maybe took a

break or took a breather during the holidays, they're now returning with their pre-approvals. They're

now returning with full intent to find something. There's a lot less tire kicking, a lot less uncertainty

in these buyers. They are ready to put in a serious offer. So, you know, these earlier in the year

buyers are definitely more decisive. They're more financially prepared. So sellers who are takingadvantage of this market and getting their houses on quickly are finding very strong buyers pretty

quickly. We've already seen it this year.

Mike Novak:

[7:35] Yeah, I had a listing, a new construction build that sat in the market for five months last year

during a very, very slow market. We pulled it off because in our mls if a listing is pulled off for 60

days it resets the days on market and then we put it back on last week and it went under contract in

48 hours at full price 48 hours same house as the market for five months you know what i mean

and it looked like i did some like magic but all i did was everything else i'd done before it's just the

market had changed exactly you know i mean and so it's very real exactly number three the third

reason you kind of want to think about timing is that competition is very real and if everyone lists

their home in spring what do you think actually happens more.

Rachael Novak:

[8:12] Competition yeah more.

Mike Novak:

[8:14] Options for sure does and, You know, we've said this many times that buyers shop by

comparison. So as a seller, what do you want? You want to have as little competition as possible.

You know, buyers are going to go look at homes that are similar size price to yours in the same

neighborhood. And if there's five or six options, they're going to pick the one they like best. And

they might even negotiate on a couple of them at the same time to get the best deal. Whereas if

there's just one and it's just your house, that's the only option they have.

Rachael Novak:

[8:39] That's exactly right. Yeah. So as we all know, the more competition, like we saw 2025, we

saw a lot of houses on the market, we saw a lot of inventory. We know that more inventory means

more competition, which leads to potentially price reductions and longer days on market. So that's

why we typically see, you know, June, July, the market slowing down, so to speak, right? And price

coming down just a little bit and softening just a little bit during that time. It's not because buyer

activity has slowed, it's that they had more options. So houses aren't flying as fast, right? They're

not selling as fast.

Mike Novak:

[9:13] Yeah yeah and you know for agents this is why like in october november you want to be like

finalizing your pipeline for listings in the new year you know i mean like you want to have those

ready to go if people are planning to list in january february and not be like going on those

appointments in january february you want to like have a really good idea who those people are

and be in conversation and dialogue and coaching them along the way so they actually get to the

market like in February.

Rachael Novak:

[9:39] Exactly. Yeah. I mean, so last year we had a very similar trend.

Rachael Novak:

[9:45] A similar situation to this year where, you know, we were working on a cosmetic remodel forsome clients that were out of town. And the house was vacant. So we had, you know, full access to

be able to get in and do the paint. And we did some appliance swapping and some light fixtures,

some mirrors, just some simple cosmetic upgrades that gave, were going to be a really good ROI

for this particular property. Well, we finished the project in the second week of December. These

sellers are very anxious. They were really wanting to get it on the market. They're sitting there, you

know, their holding costs are what they were. They're paying the mortgage or paying the utilities, all

these things. And I said, hey, do you trust me? Yes, they did. Okay, let's wait until the second week

of January or third week of January. And then let's list this house. I understand that you guys have

these holding costs, but the cost of waiting will far, far, far benefit you than just the cost of holding it

for another couple of weeks. And sure enough, we listed the home the second week of January, we

ended up going over list price, they were beyond thrilled. And they trusted me, right? So where we

would have probably gone, I don't know, $25, $50 in this price range under list price, but they would

have not had those holding costs. Yeah, they incurred another $10,000 of holding costs between

the mortgage and everything for that month or two, but we made them way more money. So that's

kind of the difference, right? The best time to sell, if you have that option, right? If you're only

selling. The best time to sell is before everybody else does. And if everybody else thinks that the

time to put a home on the market in your market is April or May.

Rachael Novak:

[11:14] Try to get in before that. That's our whole point.

Mike Novak:

[11:17] Yeah. Zig one other people's ag.

Rachael Novak:

[11:19] Exactly.

Mike Novak:

[11:20] The fourth one, you know, you want to think about uniqueness of properties because this

guidance doesn't apply to everyone, right? Like, in particular, I'm thinking about lakefront listings.

Like, we have a handful of lakes in our market. and it's a huge mistake to bring those properties to

the market like in january february you want to showcase the lifestyle of those properties and that

requires nice sunny weather which like in our market starts in like may june july sometimes april if

it's a rainy day or something like it's not gonna sell a buyer that this is a really cool house to go jet

ski and wakeboard and things like that you know yeah.

Rachael Novak:

[11:54] Yeah the point is like to think to think about this in a completely customized way, right? Like

this isn't a one-size-fits-all strategy. This is an overarching strategy for the majority of residential

real estate. But if you've got a unique property, if you've got a property that, you know, is up in an

area that gets more snow, if it's up in the mountains, it may not be very smart to list it in January or

February because there's going to be tons of snow and it's going to be hard to access. If it's a

riverfront property, if it's a lakefront property, like Mike said, you're going to want to be able to

showcase the lifestyle of that property. So waiting until April or May would be a really good choice

for those types of properties that are also going to have kind of a niche buyer market, right? So thetiming of these things, the timing of a plain residential home versus a lakefront or riverfront home,

it's about the psychology. It's about thinking about, okay, what kind of buyer is going to be coming

in to potentially purchase or be interested in a property like this? And what is the best way to

leverage that timing to appeal to those buyers, right? It's not just the statistics and what, what, you

know, sells the most and what, what month and to do that, you have to think about the psychology

of the timing as well.

Mike Novak:

[13:03] Yeah, great point. The fifth one is give yourself time to prepare the right way. And so what I

mean by this is like, like I said earlier, it takes time to bring a listing to the market correctly. It's

always a red flag for me when I go on a listing appointment and a seller tells me they want to list it

like next week. That's not even remotely possible. Like you sure you could rush it to the market, but

your outcome is going to be massively compromised. And usually sellers that say that the second

thing they say is they want to sell it for the most amount of money. Yep. These two things don't

align. Like if you want the most amount of money, which everyone does when they go to sell their

house for the record, then you need to make sure that the house looks dialed and that's a process,

you know, like for us, that process starts with going room by room with you and telling you what to

do to the home to actually have it ready to go before our team even touches it. You know, and

oftentimes that process takes people two to six weeks to go through and get done. You know, it's a

process of referring them contractors, helping them get some work done. Maybe it's been deferred

and making sure it's actually going to look great once it's staged and the photos are done and

things like that. Buyers are very picky and if they see dinged up walls, scratched floors, things that

have not been maintained, they're going to either just move on from that house or they're going to

discount in their mind that house It's massively more than what it costs to do those repairs. You

know, like they see bad carpet, that's 10 grand in the back of their head. We know bad carpets

usually like $3,000 to $4,000.

Rachael Novak:

[14:25] Exactly.

Mike Novak:

[14:25] That's just one example.

Rachael Novak:

[14:26] Yeah. I mean, it's the first impression that you're never going to get that back, right? It's like,

think about like, to use a metaphor, think about walking into a store like Ross, dressed for less,

right? You go into the store and the store is always a mess. There's always floor shoes and clothes

all over the floor. Or you're like diving through, you know, things to find a good deal or whatever.

And it's just a mess, right? Like there's no good first impression whatsoever.

Rachael Novak:

[14:53] Or you walk into Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus. You walk into a store that is well put

together. The mannequins look beautiful. You want that dress that's on a mannequin. It's gorgeous.

Like what does it cost, right? The first impression, you'll pay significantly more for a really nice first

impression with a mannequin that's put together as opposed to a shirt that you found on the floor inanother store. It's very similar in real estate, right? You don't get a chance to give the buyers a

second, first impression. You can't get a reset. Once the buyers see it, once they walk through,

your agent or you as an agent can't call those buyers or the agent of those buyers and say, well,

hold on a second. We fixed that thing. Can you come back? That's not going to happen. So it's very

important that you give yourself that time to prepare, that you are getting everything very, very

dialed in, that you're making sure that you're walking through with an objective eye. If you are a

buyer of that property, I know it's hard, but you are a buyer of that property, what would you see?

What would you be looking for? Because buyers walk into properties looking for reasons to

discount it, looking for reasons not to buy it. They do not walk in thinking the best and assuming

positive intent. It's just not how the psychology of buyers works.

Mike Novak:

[16:03] Yeah, top dollar requires top condition. Just remember that in the back of your head as

you're thinking about this as an agent, as a seller. Those two things match up. Top dollar and

mediocre condition do not match up. They just don't. So I showed a house a few months ago and...

This like really hit home for me on this point we're making right now. It was really hard to show the

home. First of all, like there was a gate in front of the house, which was hard to open. So agents

don't do that. If you're listing a house, like make it easier to show the home. And then the stairs

walking up to them were, I realize I'm heavy, but they were like sagging as I was walking up. Like I

felt like the stairs were going to actually give out. And then we went into the home and there was

six different kinds of hardwood flooring. Six, six, six different kinds of flooring. And then they had

taken, get this, the backsplash in the kitchen, was plastic. They had glued plastic tile-looking

facade onto the drywall. Like, this was their idea of presenting the property.

Rachael Novak:

[16:58] They literally just thought that, like, people wouldn't notice.

Mike Novak:

[17:02] Yeah, they thought it would sell no matter what. And it didn't sell. Like, it was on the market

for 250 days, and then it got canceled, you know? And if it would have sold, it would have sold for

way less than they were hoping it would because of all these obvious flaws that were in the

property, you know? So, anyways, enough storytelling time.

Rachael Novak:

[17:17] Yeah.

Mike Novak:

[17:17] Number six, get a value range early on in the process. Like when we go on a listing

appointment, our goal in that listing appointment is not to pinpoint the list price of that house. We

give people kind of a floor and a ceiling, but ultimately we want to see what they actually do and

how the market changes between now and when we go live to confirm that price. So we establish

that range. We make sure that we're both comfortable with that. Both the seller is good with it. And

we also are good with it. Like we actually believe this is a price range that the home will sell for.

We're not just going to take this listing or buy this listing and then discount it later. We have to

believe in the price or we're not going to move forward with it. And then we see how much workthey actually put into the home because sometimes sellers over-promise and under-deliver on what

they're actually going to do to the house. And it doesn't look like what you guys have talked about

when you actually get the home. That's a big problem, right? And now we have to have another

conversation about condition and price, right? But the markets are dynamic. And if you're going to

list a home in two months from now, you have no clue what the market's going to be doing. There

could be new closed comps that establish a higher price for you. There could also be a lot more

competition that establishes a lower price for you. But you don't know. And so you have to firm up

that price a day or two before you go live to the market. We do a whole other market analysis right

before we go live. Same thing we did at the listing appointment. Hop back on the phone, look at the

listing photos together, and really decide at that point, this is the price.

Rachael Novak:

[18:37] Absolutely. To your point, kind of creating a floor and a ceiling of pricing. I like to tell my

sellers, we are going to run all of our numbers based on the most conservative number that we

both are comfortable with. Because if the numbers work at this conservative number, obviously, I'm

paid on a percentage of a percentage of a percent that you are paying my brokerage. So I'm going

to want your number as high as possible. We have a vested interest in making sure that number is

as big and as high as possible to get you your money out. But if the bottom number, right, if that

conservative number does not work for the seller, if they don't like it or whatever, right, and this is

just a work testing out the market listing, be very wary as an agent on taking that listing because

you're going to be putting time into it, money into it. And if the numbers that you're going over the

sellers do not agree with or cannot handle, then you probably shouldn't have taken that listing. You

probably shouldn't take the listing at all. So, you know, and Mike said, as the market shifts, right,

I've multiple times I've had this happen where, you know, we have a floor, we have a ceiling price,

of course, the seller is hoping for the ceiling price, obviously, so are we, we want the most amount

possible. But as we're going through projects, or as they're finishing up little things that need to be

done to the house, the market is shifting, the market is adjusting. And by the time we get to listing,

we are at.

Rachael Novak:

[19:55] Floor price. That happens. It's the nature of the market. And it's your job as the agent to be

setting those expectations, make sure that they understand all along the way, right? We're touching

base with them every week, every other week, making sure they know what's going on in the

market, sending them new comps, making sure they see new homes going on the market, seeing

homes, what they're selling for. That's part of our job throughout that pre-listing process.

Mike Novak:

[20:18] Right. And, you know, real estate agents are fiduciaries, which means you have a financial

responsibility to be honest with your clients and that means being up front about pricing too right

being brutally honest and challenging people's thinking and not just being a yes man that says hey

sure we'll try that price even though the seller just made the price up right that's not going to get

them the result they want it's not going to help them achieve the goal of getting their home sold it's

going to result in frustration and ultimately probably not working together with you a long term and

pulling the listing because it didn't actually get sold exactly.Rachael Novak:

[20:46] I had a fantastic meeting yesterday with two very, very conscientious homeowners. And they

told me multiple times, Rachel, you know, like, if we do decide to work with you, like, I want you to

give it to us straight. And I was like, I literally laughed. I was like, I can promise you, I will always

give it to you straight, like almost too bluntly. We all laughed. But that's how you have to be right to

Mike's point, as a fiduciary, like, I'm responsible for what the expectations I'm setting when it comes

to the price that they can expect from the market, right? It's not my role. It's not my responsibility

what the house ultimately sells for. That's the market's decision. But how I set the expectations is

my job. So being honest, being very, very, very clear with them about what they can and probably

cannot get out of the home is important. Going in as an agent with a strategy of, well, we'll just get

it on the market and then I'll talk them down. I'll talk them into price adjustments is a terrible

strategy and you're not I think it's actually unethical it is unethical I totally agree yeah yeah and.

Mike Novak:

[21:49] I know that some agents that's their strategy and I just cannot disagree with that more.

Rachael Novak:

[21:52] Yep it's you're not doing if you're an agent doing that I I, You probably don't listen to this

podcast.

Mike Novak:

[21:57] Yeah, please don't follow our podcast. I don't like you. Okay, so there's six, seven reasons

on how you should time the market if you're going to time the market. You know, sometimes I think

it's important to note that, the timing sometimes is more important on that person's needs than the

price they get for the home. Meaning like they may have a need for a time of year that supersedes

the goal of price. And so you need to go into those listing appointments, open-minded and hearing

what the person is saying on what their goals are and then customize the game plan for them. This

is a very customized business. This is not a one size fits all. Like we have a formula for our

marketing and for our listing process once we decide to move forward. But the planning to get to

that point and the timing is totally unique to the client. And it has to be.

Rachael Novak:

[22:48] Absolutely has to be. That's such a great point. And I think that that also circles back to, you

know, the honesty that you have to have in regards to pricing, the honesty you have to have in

regards to how we're pricing homes. We've done a podcast on that a couple, I think a couple

months ago, right? How we're looking at active competition, how we're looking at, you know, what's

actively happening in the market right now, not what happened six months ago, not even what

happened three months ago in some markets. It's irrelevant. It's what's happening right now in the

market. How does that play into your specific timing, Mr. and Mrs. Seller? And how can we then

achieve the goal that you're trying to achieve, whether that's timing, whether that's price, whatever

that looks like. So, you know, some sellers that we work with are like, when do I like I'm flexible, it's

an investment property, we can list it when we can get the most out of it. Great. That's when we're

shooting for a timing strategy, right for this in our market, february march if they're like hey i my you

know the lease for that my tenants isn't up till june and there's no way that i can break it you know

legally okay great we're listing that and then we'll sell it for as much as we possibly can as soon asit becomes available we can sell it right so it just is totally customized as mike said so yeah

awesome there you go so there's the truth about timing the market all right happy.

Mike Novak:

[23:58] Uh spring selling season.

Rachael Novak:

[23:59] Yeah happy early spring we'll.

Mike Novak:

[24:01] See you guys next week.