List your Home on Wednesday to Sell for the Highest Price, Thursday for the Quickest Sale

To sell for the most money, homeowners should put their home on the market on a Wednesday, according to Redfin (www.redfin.com), the next-generation real estate brokerage. To sell the fastest, list on Thursday, Redfin says. The Redfin analysis, based on a sample of 100,000 homes that sold in 2017, found homes listed on Sunday performed the worst. Using Sunday as a baseline, Redfin calculated the relative advantage of listing on each day of the week.

Homes listed on Wednesday had an advantage of $2,023 in sale price over homes listed on a Sunday, a sale-to-list premium of 0.53 percent. While Wednesday had the edge on price, Thursday-listed homes sold faster and with higher certainty. Homes listed on Thursday found buyers an average of five days sooner than homes listed on Sunday. Thursday-listed homes were also more likely to be sold within 90 and 180 days than homes listed on the other days of the week.

There isn’t one clear reason why Wednesday outperforms on price, while Thursday wins on speed and certainty. Possible explanations include that agents who list on Wednesdays tend to be better at pricing strategically to command the best price, or that in this fast-paced, low-inventory market, there’s simply a sweet spot for garnering the maximum sense of urgency and competition among eager homebuyers. Another theory is that the advantage of Wednesday and Thursday correlates to buyers’ house hunting schedules.

“Serious buyers typically start making their weekend house-hunting plans late in the work week,” said Redfin Denver agent Karla Kirkpatrick-Adams. “You want your home to be one of the fresh listings buyers see pop up as they decide which homes they should see over the weekend. In the competitive Denver market, many homes are listed on Wednesday and Thursday with the expectation that buyers will come through over the weekend, submit offers by a Monday afternoon deadline and the home will be under contract by Tuesday.”

Homes get five times more online views the day they hit the market than they do a week later, so making a positive online debut is critical.

“You only get one shot at making a first impression, which is why it’s so important to have the right pricing,” said Kirkpatrick-Adams. “If you price too high, buyers may dismiss the property outright and never come back. It’s far more effective to price right at market value or slightly below to drive buyer attention early on. It’s common for well-priced homes to get multiple offers and be bid up, while overpriced homes tend to sit on the market for a while, despite the shortage of homes for sale right now.”

Besides pricing right, professional photography is another way to optimize a home sale. Homes with photos taken with professional cameras tend to fetch more money and sell faster. Sellers who used a high-quality camera for their listing photos got an average of $3,400 more for their homes.