SAN FRANCISCO–When is the most affordable time to buy a home?
New research by NerdWallet, which analyzed the past two years’ worth of listings and sales in the 50 most populous U.S. metro areas using data from Realtor.com, found that home sale prices — the amount a buyer actually pays — in the nation’s largest metro areas typically peak during the summer, dip in the fall and are lowest in winter.
Nerdwallet reported that in the majority of metro areas analyzed, home sale prices peak in June and July. Inventory is also highest those months, but so is competition, it noted.
Sale prices decline in autumn, but home listing prices don’t fall dramatically once summer ends — they only decrease less than half a percentage point in the fall, the company said. “But sale prices take a noticeable dip. In the 50 metro areas, home sale prices dropped 2.96% on average — that’s a drop of $8,300 on the median home — from summer (June through August) to fall (September through November),” according to Nerdwallet.
Not surprisingly, home sale prices are usually lowest in winter. During January or February homes cost 8.45% less on average than in June through August. January had the cheapest sale prices in 29 of the 50 metro areas, and February had the cheapest prices in 19 areas, Nerdwallet said.
The degree of seasonal decreases in home sale prices varies across metro areas. In the analysis, the metro area of Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, Connecticut, experienced the largest drop in price from summer to fall at 8.2%. The Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio, metro area had the second-largest drop at 8.0%, and the Birmingham-Hoover, Alabama, metro area came in third with a 7.6% drop in price from summer to fall, Nerdwallet reported.