Spring or Fall

Everyone tells you to wait for spring.

They are right that spring pays more. Across 30,451 DC row house sales from 2016 to 2025, spring runs about four percent above October per square foot. On a $1M house that is $40,000.

The other column is the one that gets left off. Waiting from September to April is seven months of owning a house you have already decided to leave, or seven months of rent you will never see again.

This is a worksheet, not an essay. One page for sellers, one for buyers. You fill in the right-hand column with your own numbers and add it up. Whichever number is bigger wins.

4%

The spring lift per square foot, spring against October, over ten years

7

Months of holding or rent that the lift has to cover, September to April

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What is on the two pages

  • Sellers: the lift against the holding

    Your likely sale price this month, times four percent. Then mortgage, property tax, insurance, utilities, upkeep, times seven. Two totals, one decision.

  • Buyers: waiting costs you twice

    Seven months of rent you do not get back, plus the same four percent on the price of whatever you eventually buy. Both lines on one sheet.

  • What fall gives a buyer instead

    In October, 31% of sales closed above asking against 42% in spring. 25% closed under 95% of asking against 19%. Above $1.3M the median time to contract was 15.5 days against 8.

  • The October timing detail

    Through October 15 listings held their September pricing. After the 15th they dropped about four points. Roughly seven in ten October listings went under contract within thirty days.

The caveat, which is on the sheet too

The four percent is a ten-year average, and in 2025 it had nearly closed: spring listings got 96.5 percent of asking, October got 96.2. If that holds, the case for waiting gets thinner, not stronger.

Source is 30,451 DC row house sales, 2016 to 2025. Spring is March to May. This is arithmetic, not advice: rates, your lease, your job and your street all move the answer.