Would you list in mid December or wait until spring?

Question

Curious how everyone here handles timing on dispositions going into winter in the northern states where snow becomes a real factor. If you have a fix and flip that will be completely ready to hit the market around Mid December, call it 12/9, are you launching it or holding for the spring market? And why?

Does your strategy change based on the asset type? Does it matter if it is a single family or a two family?

For context, we manage about 900 units across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Maine, and help around 100 people a year buy their first investment property. Across our meetups in Worcester, Lowell, Waltham, Portsmouth, Manchester, Biddeford, Northboro, Boston, Lewiston, Hartford, and Medford, this question comes up constantly this time of year. I figured I would throw it out here too given today’s market environment to see what people are doing.

I have my own opinion, but I am curious what other people are seeing. Does the season matter to you, or do the holding costs push you to list right away? Do you treat single families and multifamily differently?

Dan Adams · Answer

It's a smaller pool in the dead of winter... and that's not always a bad thing.For those of us who must exist in this frozen hellscape for a 1031 or whatevs,sometimes a random offering in the middle of winter can be a friggin gold nugget / escape hatch for an investor who is just trying to make a deal work.

Samuel Eddinger · Answer

We are flipping quite a few right now and we have definitely noticed a slow down due to the seasonality.  I'm starting to rethink our timing on flips (getting larger flips that take until the early spring) because of this.

I do think that if you have a property ready for sale, you can list now and then pull like 30 days before the spring market and then repost in the spring to freshen the listing.