March Madness For Home Sales 2026

There’s no shortage of advice online about the best time to list, and it all goes something like this: The vast majority of home sales occur when the weather heats up, and homes sold during this time of year tend to attract high prices.

Conventional wisdom tells us it’s best to list early in the year. That way, you’re sure to benefit from the Spring peak in sales, and the premium pricing during the warmer months as well. List too late, we’re warned, and you could miss this warm weather bump.

But when you stop and think about it, this advice is rather imprecise — almost unhelpfully so. “Early in the year” could mean January 1, or April 30, or any date in between.

Until recently, there was simply no way to crunch the numbers to determine the most advantageous moment for homeowners to put their property on the market. This isn’t because economists hadn’t figured out the right method of analysis. Rather, economists hadn’t had access to all the relevant data.

It all comes down to supply and demand. In order to identify the window where sellers have the best shot at selling quickly for the most money, you need good data on four important questions:

• When are buyers looking to buy?
• When are sellers looking to sell?
• When are these listings and sales taking place?
• Did the sale under-perform or over-perform?

Now for the first time, the answers to all these questions exist in the same place, readily available to consumers, and we can finally answer that simple question on every home seller’s mind, the one that no one has been able to precisely answer until now:

When exactly should I list?

Statistically Speaking The First Three (3) Weeks of March Are The BEST Time to List Your Home For Sale!

For 4 straight years in the greater Seattle area homes listed in March and closing in April have received the highest sales price each year when compared to other months. In fact, waiting just 1 month and listing in April with closings taking place in May or June have shown to cost some homeowners over $100,000 in sales price compared to similar homes that listed in March and closed in April!

Right now, in the greater Seattle area we are experiencing exactly such a spike in contacts and web traffic known to lead to a surge in sales! In fact, web traffic has spiked over 300% just on The Cascade Team alone as Sellers prepare to sell and buyers become eager to take advantage of increasing inventory and lower rates.

When prospective buyers start contacting agents, it is a clear indication they are getting serious about house-hunting. Sure enough, analyzing on-line traffic from The Cascade Team, Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com and other real estate sites, we can see that spike in agent inquiries translate into actual home sales. Typically, after the normal spike in agent contacts, sales reach their highest levels just a few weeks later.

And that time is NOW: MARCH

Our analysis of the data shows that homes listing in the first three weeks of March will sell the fastest and for the most money! These “magic weeks” come just before the peak in agent contacts and just after the peak in newly listed homes. Our analysis showed that these high-performing, late-March and early April listings didn’t get lost in the sea of other new listings. Just the opposite;

“Sellers that have come to market ahead of the traditional spring market are reaping the benefits of less competition [from others who are selling] and a highly competitive buyer pool.” 

So, if you are wondering about our current market, then let me assure you: It is indeed a fabulous time to sell! Not only will your "days on market" be fewer by listing early, but you might also end up making significantly more money on your sale than someone waiting until May and trying to time the end of the school year for example.