When Is the Best Time to Sell a House in Atlanta?

Once you’ve decided to sell your Atlanta area home, deciding when to sell is the key to selling faster and for more money. For instance, based on historical data, if you list your $400,000 home in March, you could sell it for $22,520 more than the yearly average! But depending on your selling objective, the best time to list your home may differ.

In this post, we’ll walk you through how to decide when to sell your home as well as local factors that can affect the sale. But first, here’s some information on the Atlanta housing market to give you a good idea of where the market stands and how your house fits in.

Atlanta housing trends

The current median listing price for Atlanta is around $412,000 ($265 per square foot) and the median sold price is $410,000. The median listing price represents a 5.9% year-over-year increase and the sale-to-list price ratio is 101%, meaning that by and large people are selling their house at or slightly above the asking price.

At the moment, Atlanta is firmly in a seller’s market, and homes are selling after an average of 37 days on the market.

The price for a home in Atlanta varies greatly depending on the neighborhood that the home is in. For instance, in Morningside – Lenox Park, the median listing price is close to $1 million versus the Grove Park neighborhood with a median listing price of $299,000 — the rest of the neighborhoods in Atlanta fall somewhere in between.

To give you a good idea of the best time to sell your house in Atlanta, we ran the numbers through our Best Time To Sell Calculator, analyzed local real estate trends, and spoke with Brenda Dollar, a top Atlanta, Georgia, agent who works with over 74% more single-family homes than the average Atlanta agent. She helped us identify the biggest mistake sellers make when they list their homes as well as shared her expert tips on selling your house fast and for the most money.

What's Your Atlanta Home Worth?

Get a near-instant real estate house price estimate from HomeLight for free. Our tool analyzes the records of recently sold homes near you, your home’s last sale price, and other market trends to provide a preliminary range of value in under two minutes.

Get Estimate

When is the best time to sell a house in Atlanta?

The Atlanta market is a hot market right now. Dollar says, “I’ve been doing this for 27 years now and have never ever been through a market such as this — it has been this way for the last two and a half years, and we were thinking as real estate professionals that the market would balance out or go down, but it didn’t. It actually went up.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic shook up the market in ways that we didn’t see coming, Dollar did see seasonal trends with the market heating up in the spring, but says that’s changed since 2020.

“Normally it was springtime. Between March and April was always the hot time for sellers. They want to do that spring cleaning and spruce up outside,” she says, but goes on to say, “for the last couple of years, I’ve also sold houses in October and November.”

Let’s take a look at real estate transaction data for Atlanta and some surrounding cities to find the best time to sell your home whether you want to sell for the most money or sell fast.

Best times to sell a house in Atlanta

Best times to sell a house in North Decatur

Best times to sell a house in Roswell

Best times to sell a house in Johns Creek

Best times to sell a house in Sandy Springs

Best times to sell a house in Milton

Best times to sell a house in Marietta

All charts based on historical home sales data, 2014-2021

To see home-selling trends in your city, check out our Best Time to Sell Calculator.

When you’ve done the research and are ready to list your home, contact a top Atlanta area real estate agent. They will be able to give you a better estimate of both the best time to sell and the value of your home.

5 selling trends in Atlanta

1. Transient culture creates a busy market

LinkedIn’s Workforce Report for Atlanta shows that hiring in November 2021 was up 3.3% from the previous month with many workers moving from New York City, New York, Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California.

Atlanta residents, on the other hand, primarily migrated to Denver, Colorado, Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, and Tampa Bay, Florida. This transient culture creates a busy real estate market where homes are scooped up quickly as people sell and others move into the area.

2. Housing is becoming unaffordable in the suburbs as well as metro area 

The house prices in metro Atlanta are rising, and the suburbs were once thought to be a place where residents could go for more affordable housing. This may not be the case anymore.

The factors that are affecting the housing shortage in the rest of the country are also showing up in Atlanta. Rapid growth, labor and material shortages, and corporate investors are continuing to create a housing shortage that is, increasingly, making the suburbs as well as the metro area unaffordable — and causing people to look for alternatives.

3. Inventory is trending down

Norada Real Estate Investments reports that the housing inventory in the Atlanta area in January 2022 decreased 24.2% year-over-year, representing a 0.9 months’ supply of inventory (a six-month supply is considered a balanced market). A lower number of months will typically push prices up more rapidly, which is what the Atlanta housing market has been experiencing.

4. Median sale price is trending up

Over the past five years, Atlanta area home values have increased by more than 74%. The median sale price and year-over-year change differs depending on the source, but no matter where you look, it’s clear that sale prices continue to rise.

5. iBuyers make up a significant portion of Atlanta buyers

iBuyers (or instant buyers) use algorithms to place a value on homes and then make a cash offer to the seller, often buying the home “as is.” Atlanta sees more iBuyer activity than any other city in the U.S.

This creates a service for sellers to sell their homes quickly, but it also exacerbates the inventory crunch for traditional buyers looking for a home rather than an investment property — though these homes will see the market again after the iBuyer makes repairs and lists them.

Insider tips to help sell your Atlanta area home

Even in a hot seller’s market, there are things you can do to help your home sell faster and for more money. Dollar gives her clients a list of 47 things they can do to achieve their goal of selling quickly and for top dollar.

“The biggest thing that I’ve seen that people need to do is declutter. Do some painting, clean the carpet. And right now, in this market, a lot of times you don’t have to do that but to make more money, you want your house to be in the best light when potential clients come in,” Dollar says.

Staging can make a big impact as well because you want people to be able to see themselves living in your house. For instance, “I’ve had to explain to a couple of sellers ‘let’s take the bed out because it takes up the entire room and let’s do something different,’” Dollar shares.

Ultimately, Dollar simplifies it by saying, “The best thing to do to sell a home faster is to make sure the outside looks nice and has nice curb appeal and make sure the house in the interior is decluttered and clean.”

Connect With a Top Agent to Sell Your Atlanta Home

It takes just two minutes to match clients with the best real estate agents, who will contact you and guide you through the process. To connect with an agent, simply tell us a little bit about your property and how soon you’re looking to sell.

Our data shows the top 5% of agents across the U.S. help clients sell their home for as much as 10% more than the average real estate agent.

Find Agent

Answers to other Atlanta home-selling questions

Are homes in Atlanta appreciating in value faster or slower than other similar-sized cities?
Norada Real Estate Investments reports that the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell Metro area has seen home value appreciation of 28.6% over the last year and forecasts from Zillow’s home price forecast show that they will rise 23.3% over the upcoming 12 months.

Depending on the area, Atlanta home appreciation varies. Home values in Atlanta City have risen 18.2%, Fulton County homes have gone up 22.2%, and Sandy Spring home values have gone up 19.3% in the last year.

Atlanta home values will annualize to an appreciation rate of 28.36% if the current appreciation rate remains steady. Bank of America predicts that home price growth for the U.S. will be 10% in 2022, down from 2021’s appreciation rate of 18.8%, according to the Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index.

To find out what your home might be worth in Atlanta, you can use HomeLight’s Home Value Estimator. We’ll provide a real-time ballpark value estimate based on current market trends and transaction data from multiple sources.

What if I need a fast sale and closing in Atlanta?
If you need a fast sale and closing in Atlanta — whether you’re facing a life change or don’t have the money to do repairs, or just want to move on to a new home — HomeLight’s Simple Sale platform can provide you with an all-cash offer and closing in as few as 10 days.

Just complete a short questionnaire, and receive a no-obligation cash offer within 48 hours on your home. You can skip the repairs and sell your Atlanta home quickly and easily.

What is the biggest mistake sellers make when selling a home in Atlanta?
Dollar says that the biggest mistake she sees sellers making when selling a home in Atlanta is not exploring their options. Whether they’re listing with the first agent that calls or choosing a quick iBuyer sale, sellers are going with their first option rather than taking time to explore all the options available to them.

Dollar sees that “some sellers will go with the first agent that calls them when they want to sell their house whether the agent is experienced or not experienced. The first person in the door — they normally go with.”

This is a mistake if you want to get the most out of your home sale. Take the time to interview agents and really explore your options.

Are more people moving into or out of Atlanta?
According to data from macrotrends, the current Atlanta metro area population is just over 6 million people, representing a 1.73% increase from 2021. At the moment, domestic migration into the city and birth rates are keeping the population growing. But while each of the last three years has seen the population increase, the increases get a little smaller each year.

Find a top agent in Atlanta for a successful home sale

When you decide to sell, finding out the best time to sell your Atlanta home so it sells faster and for more money can make it a more productive and positive experience.

Another factor in having the best home-selling experience is to partner with a top Atlanta agent by using HomeLight’s free Agent Match platform. Our matching service tool analyzes over 27 million transactions and thousands of reviews to find you the best agent based on your needs and location.

Your agent can further advise you on the best time to sell your house as well as walk you through the steps to make it as appealing as possible to potential buyers.

Header Image Source: (ibuki Tsubo / Unsplash)