Thinking of selling your Melbourne home in spring? You might want to rethink that tradition and your bank account will thank you. Data reveals homeowners are leaving hundreds of thousands on the table by selling at the wrong time.
Winter’s great for buying in Melbourne, but spring might not be the best time to sell.
When it comes to selling, timing is not everything. It is the only thing
For decades, Melbourne sellers have followed one sacred ritual: sell in spring. Fresh flowers, blue skies, and a flood of listings. Therefore, what could go wrong?
Apparently, a lot.
According to new data from Ray White’s economics team, the most profitable time to sell your home in Melbourne is not spring, it’s autumn. Yep, that means March. In some cases, sticking to spring has cost sellers six figures, especially in blue-chip suburbs like Toorak.
Meanwhile, savvy buyers are using this seasonal flooding of listings to their advantage and picking off dream homes for less while sellers compete for attention.
A Werribee three-bed home sold for $510,000 in February, one of the suburb’s top selling months, says Ray White.
The price gap is real
Over the past 10 years, homes have consistently fetched higher median prices in autumn, with hundreds of thousands of dollars separating the best and worst-selling months. Ouch.
So, why are we still holding Saturday auctions at 11AM during peak family time? As auctioneer Andy Reid puts it: “We’re clinging to a mentality stuck in the ’90s.” Midweek auctions or earlier time slots (say, 9:30AM) may sound weird but they reduce friction and increase buyer turnout.
If you want to buy a bargain, let's think buy home in july.
While spring is great for Instagrammable gardens, July is prime time for buyers. With sellers motivated and buyer activity lower (blame tax returns and post-Santa budgets), buyers have more room to negotiate. In fact, 108 suburbs hit their most affordable price point in July, closely followed by January.
A four-bedroom Eltham home sold for $1.575m in July 2024, historically the best month to sell in the area.
So if you're planning to buy a home in Victoria, now’s your chance to beat the post-rate-cut price surge.
Spring: great for gardens, not for profits
As buyer’s advocate Nicole Jacobs puts it: “Unless your backyard is the Royal Botanic Gardens, spring might not be worth waiting for.” Agents may push spring listings to suit their schedules not your bottom line. And while December is often treated like a dead month, it’s secretly great for scooping up unsold stock at a discount.
Time to flip the script
The real estate world is changing and so should you. Selling in autumn, rethinking auction timings, and buying before rate cuts take effect could make or save you serious money.
Because in Australia real estate, smart timing is everything and tradition doesn’t pay the bills.
