There's no single best month to sell a house in Australia, although seasonality plays a substantial role in the property market.

Nationally, spring brings the most buyers, and November is the busiest month in most states. But spring also brings the most homes for sale, so your home faces more competition. In winter, fewer homes come onto the market than in spring (except in Darwin), while buyer numbers stay close to average.

The quietest months for buyers are January and February, and Easter brings a dip too. That's what ten years of home-loan figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show. Below is the pattern in your state, and how to plan a launch date (the day your home goes on the market) around it.

This guide is about the time of year. If you'd like to know what the market is doing right now, see our guide to whether to sell now or wait.

When are there the most buyers?

November is the busiest month for buyers in most states. In Victoria it's December, and in Tasmania, March and November are equally busy. December is also strong in NSW, South Australia and the ACT.

To measure buyers, we use home loans taken out by owner-occupiers (people buying a home to live in) to buy an existing home. Cash buyers, investors and buyers of new homes aren't counted.

Nationally, from 2014 to 2023, there were about 11 per cent more of these loans in November than in an average month. That's our calculation from ABS lending figures.

March is also busy in most states, and May is above average everywhere except Queensland and the NT. In Victoria, though, March is below average. And the busiest month shifts from year to year, mostly between November and December.

In this table, 100 is an average month, so 113 means 13 per cent more loans than usual.

The ABS counts a loan in the month the buyer accepts the lender's offer, so these figures can't show when buyers inspected or made offers. We'd expect most to accept around the time they sign a contract, or soon after. So the November and December peak probably reflects buyers who were inspecting in October and November.

When do the most homes come up for sale?

October is the peak month for new listings (homes newly put up for sale), with November close behind, according to property data company Cotality (formerly CoreLogic). That's Cotality's average for the decade before the pandemic. Over the past five years, Cotality found new listings rose almost 25 per cent between the end of August and the middle of November.

Canberra had the biggest spring rise of the cities Cotality named. In the decade before the pandemic, its new listings rose by an average of 40 per cent from winter to spring. Hobart, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney each rose by more than 20 per cent.

Cotality found listings then fall away through December, and in December 2024 they were in line with the five-year average for that time of year.

Fewer homes are listed in winter. Cotality found that in the decade before the pandemic, new listings nationally fell by about 9 per cent from autumn to winter.

Is spring the best time to sell?

Not always. Spring does bring the most buyers of the year nationally, but new listings rise faster than buyer numbers.

In the decade before the pandemic, Cotality found new listings rose by an average of 21 per cent from winter to spring. Home loans, our measure of buyers, rose about 4 per cent from winter to spring in 2014 to 2023.

In winter, the picture flips. Fewer homes come onto the market. Averaged over winter, home loans stay within 3 per cent of the yearly average in every state.

The pattern also varies from year to year and between suburbs: in 2022, Cotality found spring came without the usual rise in listings. Whether more buyers or fewer competing listings matters more depends on your home. It's worth asking local agents how many homes like yours they expect to be listed at each time of year.

If you plan to sell at auction, Cotality says the auction market is typically stronger in spring and weaker in winter. Our guide to auction or private sale can help you choose, and here's the best day and time to hold an auction.

If you do sell in spring, a home stager can help your home stand out from the extra listings. Our spring selling guide has more ideas.

What's the worst time of year to sell?

January is the quietest month for buyers in every state except Victoria, where February is slightly quieter. Home loans in January ran 9 to 20 per cent below an average month, depending on the state. February, a shorter month, was below average everywhere.

The dip coincides with the school summer holidays. Depending on the state, schools break up between 10 and 18 December and go back in late January or early February.

Easter is the other dip. Nationally, in years when Good Friday fell in April, home loans in April averaged 7 per cent below an average month. In the five years it fell in March, April was close to average (ABS, 2003 to 2023).

In Easter week 2024, capital-city auctions fell to 901, from 3,519 the week before, according to Cotality (then called CoreLogic).

In 2027, Easter runs from Friday 26 to Monday 29 March, the start of the school holidays in Victoria and Queensland. So if you're planning an autumn sale in 2027, the Easter dip is likely to fall in late March.

September can also be slow in Victoria: home loans there run about 5 per cent below average. Cotality says school holidays and football finals can disrupt the market in September.

If you're planning around the school year, here are the government school holidays from December 2026 through 2027, as each state and territory government publishes them. Private schools may differ.

Holidays are the days between terms, weekends included. In the ACT, continuing students go back on 2 February, and the NSW Western division starts term 1 on 4 February.

Does a home take longer to sell in some seasons?

In our analysis of three years of sales in ten cities, published in June 2025, homes sold fastest in autumn or spring. In nine of the ten, they sold slowest in summer. The exact years and method weren't recorded, so treat the figures as a guide.

Figures are the median days on market (the middle figure for the time from listing to sale) in each season. The fastest season in each city is in bold.

In Melbourne, a home took about a week longer to sell in summer than in autumn or spring, and in Darwin almost two weeks longer than in autumn. Our guide to how long it takes to sell a house covers the other things that affect it.

How do I plan when to list?

If you're working to a move date or the start of a school term, work back from it. Your contract sets the settlement date (the day the buyer pays the balance and the sale completes), and it's negotiable. Our guide to negotiating your settlement date explains how.

The state governments that publish a usual settlement period give these:

• NSW: typically six weeks after contracts are exchanged, when the buyer and seller swap signed copies.
• Victoria and WA: usually 30 to 90 days.
• Queensland: most commonly four to six weeks.
• South Australia: usually four to 12 weeks.

Before settlement comes the campaign, the stretch of advertising and open inspections that leads up to the sale. Consumer Affairs Victoria describes an auction campaign as several weeks long.

Before you launch, allow time to choose an agent and get your home ready. Our selling timeline sets out what to do and when, and our guide to selling your home covers the rest.

An example. Say you'd like to settle in NSW by Friday 2 July 2027, the last day of term 2. With a six-week settlement, you'd need to exchange contracts by about 21 May.

If your agent suggests a four-week campaign, you'd launch around 23 April. That's the Friday before the Anzac Day long weekend, at the end of the autumn school holidays. You could instead launch a few days later and agree a settlement of about five weeks.

Or you could launch by about 22 February, so the campaign runs into March (a busy month for buyers in NSW) and finishes before Easter. You'd then agree a settlement of about 15 weeks, if the buyer will accept it. Each option assumes you find a buyer by the end of the campaign.

If you're buying your next home too, here's the best time of year to buy a house.

Is the best time different in Darwin and the NT?

Partly. In Darwin, fewer homes come up for sale in the wet summer months, but NT home loans still peak in November and dip in January, as they do nationally. The Bureau of Meteorology puts the wet season at about October to April in the far north of the NT.

Cotality found that in the decade before the pandemic, new listings in Darwin dropped by about 35 per cent going into the wet summer months, and autumn was the busiest time for new listings.

In the NT, October is the busiest month for home loans after November. A local agent can tell you whether more buyers or fewer competing listings matters more in your suburb.

What should I ask an agent about timing?

Agents who sell in your suburb know how the calendar plays out there. When you meet agents, it's worth asking:

• How many homes like mine do you expect to come up for sale when I'm planning to list?
• Which weekends would you avoid for open homes or an auction here?
• How long do your campaigns usually run in this suburb, and when would you launch to settle by my date?
• Would you suggest auction or private sale at that time of year, and why?

For more, see our questions to ask a real estate agent.

Frequently asked questions about the best time to sell a house

Where these figures come from

Buyers: our calculation from the ABS's Lending indicators, using owner-occupier loan commitments to buy existing homes, by number, not seasonally adjusted, by state. For each year from 2014 to 2023, we divided each month's figure by that year's monthly average, then averaged each month across the ten years.

The ABS published the monthly series until September 2024, so 2023 is the last full year. The Easter comparison uses 2003 to 2023. Figures before July 2019 were modelled by the ABS onto a newer collection, so treat small differences between months with caution.

Listings and auctions: Cotality (formerly CoreLogic):

• two 2022 articles on the spring listings season, 28 July and 5 December (archived copies)
• a 27 August 2026 article on spring listings
• its housing chart packs for January 2025, July 2026 and October 2026
• its auction preview for the week ending 7 April 2024

Calendar and settlement, all read in October 2026:

• school terms from each state and territory government's school calendar
• Easter dates from the ACT Government and public holidays from the NSW Government
• the wet season from the Bureau of Meteorology
• settlement periods from the NSW, Victorian, Queensland, South Australian and WA governments