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The best time of the year to buy real estate is…

Winston Westbrook
1 min read

I get asked the following question from time to time:
Winston what is the best time of the year to buy or invest in real estate? 

I have been in real estate sales and finance since 1995 and I would usually say that towards the end of the year was the best time of the year to purchase a property. Why do I say this?

  • Less competition
  • Less competition
  • Less competition

I never had the hard stats to prove it but you could just get a feel for it based on market conditions. Towards the end of the year I would get less activity from:

  • advertisements
  • listings
  • referrals
  • etc etc

I got to thinking and so I came across this section in Google called Google Trends. Google Trends lets you see what people are searching for over a selected period of time. I found an interesting trend for the search for “real estate” in the United States.

Analyzing “Real Estate” Trends on Google

As you can see in the graph below I did a search for the term “Real Estate”. Since 2004 till present you can see a pattern in the way people search for real estate. You can see that right around October it really starts to wane off till it bottoms out around the holidays. Then right immediately after the holidays it spikes straight up.

real estate search google trend

You can see in the graph below for 2008 how around October it wanes off until after the holidays then pow!

2008 real estate google search trends

Same thing for the graph below in 2007. Not so much of a spike but the rise is there after the holidays.


2007 real estate google trend

2006 saw the same thing of a drop from October then a spike after the holidays.

2006 real estate google trend

Based on my observation it is safe to say that the best time of the year to be out there searching for a home to purchase for yourself or to invest is:

  • October
  • November
  • December 1-25

Your offers are more likely to be accepted because of less people out there making offers. Take advantage of the fact that everyone is tied up with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukah. While they worry about the holidays you are out there mining the field clean.

Good luck in all you do America!

P.s. So when is the best day of the year to list a house?  Dec 26 🙂

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.