The Real Selling Season
Every agent tells sellers to list before season. Almost none of them can tell you which months actually move the market, and which months bring the buyers from out of state. The public records can.
Sellers ask me some version of the same question almost every August: is now a good time to list? The honest answer requires more than instinct. So I went back to the arms-length sales recorded in the public Broward County tax roll and looked at two things separately — when homes actually close, and who is buying them — broken out by calendar month rather than by year. The pattern is clearer, and more useful, than the usual seasonal advice.
When the market actually moves
Because the sales window spans January 2024 through October 2025, some months in the data have two full years behind them and others have only one. I normalized for that by looking at average closings per year, month by month, rather than raw totals — otherwise a thin, partial data month can look artificially slow.
Once normalized, the pattern is unmistakable: closings build through the first quarter and peak in March, April, and May, each averaging over 500 closings a year across Fort Lauderdale, Lighthouse Point, Pompano Beach, and the adjacent coastal communities. Volume then eases through summer, dropping into the 430–460 range from June through August, and settles lowest in early fall, around 360 closings in September.
Prices hold remarkably steady across this cycle — medians move in a narrow band roughly between $460,000 and $515,000 no matter the month. The seasonal effect here is entirely about volume and pace, not price. More buyers are actively closing in spring, which means more competition for a well-positioned listing, and typically a faster path from listing to contract.
Because a typical sale takes roughly sixty to ninety days from listing to closing table, a home listed in late summer or early fall is well positioned to close inside that spring window. That is the practical translation of this data: the decision sellers are quietly making right now, in August, is the one that determines whether their home is on the market during its strongest season or its weakest one.
Who is buying, and when
The second pattern is about the buyers themselves. I have written before about where Fort Lauderdale's out-of-state buyers come from. What I had not yet looked at was when those buyers close, as distinct from local buyers.
The records show a real seasonal split. Out-of-state buyers make up roughly 18 to 20 percent of purchases in January through April, climbing highest in February. That share falls to its lowest point in July, near 13 percent, before drifting back up toward year end. In plain terms: the buyer most likely to be relocating from the Northeast or arriving from Canada is disproportionately closing in winter and early spring, not in the middle of summer.
What this means depending on your goal
- Maximum buyer pool, fastest pace. List in late summer or early fall to be active and visible through the spring closing peak, when both volume and competition for well-priced homes are highest.
- Reaching the out-of-state or relocating buyer specifically. That buyer is most active January through April. A listing positioned to close in that window reaches a meaningfully larger share of out-of-state interest than one that closes in July.
- Pricing discipline either way. Because median price barely moves across the calendar, there is no meaningful pricing penalty to listing in a slower month — the cost is pace and buyer volume, not value.
None of this replaces a conversation about your specific home, neighborhood, and circumstances — timing is one input, not the whole decision. But if you are weighing whether to list now or wait, the records suggest the question is less about the month you list and more about which closing window you are trying to land inside. I am always glad to walk through what that looks like for a specific property.
Figures reflect arms-length sales recorded in the Broward County property tax roll, January 2024 through October 2025, published by the Florida Department of Revenue as public record. Monthly figures are normalized for years of coverage; October through December reflect a single year of data and should be read with that in mind. Market data is offered for general information and is not a guarantee of any individual property's timeline or value.