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Palo Alto · when to sell Does spring actually produce better results?

Every Palo Alto single-family sale from 2021 through 2025 — 1,986 of them — sorted by the month the seller chose to list. The seasonal difference in supply is enormous. The difference in sale-to-original-asking results is much less consistent. That does not make autumn “better” than spring. It does suggest that waiting for spring simply because it is spring deserves a closer look.

What sellers do

Almost half the year’s houses arrive in four months.

March alone carries 12.0% of the year’s listings. December carries 2.0% — about one house for every 6 that arrive in March.

Share of the year’s Palo Alto single-family listings that begin in each month. March is the busiest at 12.0%; December the quietest at 2.0%. 6.2%Jan9.8%Feb12.0%Mar11.6%Apr11.5%May7.8%Jun8.2%Jul9.0%Aug10.5%Sep7.8%Oct3.7%Nov2.0%Dec
Where the year’s listings actually fall. Five years, 1,986 sales. Nearly half of them — 44.9% — start in the four months from February to May. The three months from October to December take 13.4% between them. Pale bars are months with fewer than 80 sales across the whole five years.

Source: MLSListings. Palo Alto · single-family homes · sold, listed 2021–2025. n = 1,986. Medians. Compiled 2026-09-28.

What they got for it

Sale-to-asking results were much less seasonal.

Same 5 years, same 1,986 houses, each closing price compared with that property’s original asking price. In the pooled sample the median sale in every listing month closed above original asking, and the gap among months is considerably smaller than the difference in listing volume.

That does not mean the calendar has no effect. It means this dataset does not show a simple relationship in which the busiest listing months consistently produced the strongest sale-to-original-asking results.

One important distinction: sale-to-asking performance is not the same thing as appreciation. Asking price is a seller and agent decision. These figures describe how homes performed against the prices at which they were launched.

Median sale price against original asking price, by the month the house was listed. Every month sits above the asking price; the range across the whole year is about five percentage points. the asking price +1.5% Jan +3.8% Feb +3.6% Mar +2.8% Apr +3.8% May +2.8% Jun +0.7% Jul +4.4% Aug +3.1% Sep +4.1% Oct +6.2% Nov +5.8% Dec
The same five years, by what the houses got. Every month closes above the asking price, and the spread from the weakest month to the strongest is about five percentage points — against a difference in how many people list of roughly six to one. The two softest months are January and July: the gaps either side of the two rushes, not the depth of winter.

Source: MLSListings. Palo Alto · single-family homes · sold, listed 2021–2025. n = 1,986. Medians. Compiled 2026-09-28.

Side by side

Spring brought far more listings. It did not produce a higher median sale-to-asking result in this sample.

February – May

3.4%

over original asking, median

Sold above original asking
63%
Median days on market
8
Share of the year’s listings
45%
Houses
892

October – December

5.1%

over original asking, median

Sold above original asking
66%
Median days on market
8
Share of the year’s listings
13%
Houses
266

The autumn group had a higher median sale-to-original-asking result in this 5-year sample, while median time on market was the same. That is interesting. It is not proof that sellers should list in autumn.

These are not two randomly selected groups of identical homes. The homes differ, the sellers differ, the market changes from year to year, and November and December have much smaller samples.

October provides a useful reality check, because its 154 sales are a more substantial sample: its median result was 4.1% above original asking, compared with 3.4% for February through May.

The careful conclusion is therefore not “list in October”.

Before anyone changes the calendar

The year mattered more than the month.

This is the chart that stops the page becoming advice.

Median sale-to-asking ratio by listing month, drawn separately for each of the five years. The lines are far apart vertically, showing that which year a house sold in mattered more than which month. the asking price20212022202320242025JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
One line per year, same measure. Pooled across all five years the gap between the best and worst month is about 3.7 percentage points. Within any single year it ranges from 4.7 to 12.1, and the same month can differ by 7.3 points from one year to the next. The seasonal signal is smaller than the year-to-year noise around it — which is why this page does not end by naming a month.

Source: MLSListings. Palo Alto · single-family homes · sold, listed 2021–2025. n = 1,986. Medians. Compiled 2026-09-28.

Across the five years, the best month to have listed was November in 2021, January in 2022, November in 2023, December in 2024 and February in 2025. Not once was it March, April or May — three of the four months that half of Palo Alto picks.

The thin months really are thin

November and December carry 73 and 39 sales across the whole five years. The quarter they sit in carries 266 and is worth reading; the two months on their own are not. They are drawn pale on the charts above for that reason.

The homes are not randomly assigned to months

A homeowner who chooses to list during the holidays may have different circumstances from someone who automatically waits for March. The properties differ as well: December’s median price per square foot is $2,229 against about $1,904 in spring. Some apparent seasonal difference may actually be a difference in the homes and sellers who selected those months — which is one reason not to read these charts as a controlled experiment.

July and January were the weakest months in the pooled sample

That is what these 5 years recorded — the gaps either side of the two rushes, rather than the depth of winter. It does not establish that either month is inherently a bad time to sell, and it does not tell us what either will look like next year.

None of this is a forecast

It is a record of what 1,986 houses did between 2021 and 2025, and rates, inventory and the mood of the market move faster than the calendar does.

Median price per square foot of the homes listed in each month. December is the highest at $2,229, against roughly $1,854 in spring — evidence that the homes listed in different months are not the same kind of home. $1,800$2,000$2,200$1,840Jan$1,786Feb$1,898Mar$1,854Apr$1,904May$1,862Jun$1,797Jul$1,923Aug$1,876Sep$1,910Oct$1,903Nov$2,229Dec
Median price per square foot of the homes listed in each month. If the months held the same kind of house, this line would be flat. December’s median is $2,229 against about $1,854 in spring, on 39 sales across the five years — which is part of why the autumn figures are not a like-for-like comparison with the spring ones. Hollow dots are months with fewer than 80 sales.

Source: MLSListings. Palo Alto · single-family homes · sold, listed 2021–2025. n = 1,986. Medians. Compiled 2026-09-28.

For comparison

The first fortnight separated outcomes far more than the calendar did.

A spread is only meaningful next to another spread. Measured the same way, on the same 1,986 sales, here is how the months compare with how quickly a house went under contract.

Median sale price against original asking price, grouped by how long the house took to go under contract. Homes that sold within two weeks closed a median 7.1% above original asking; homes that took more than sixty days closed 9.6% below it. original asking priceWithin a week721 sales · 36.3% of them+7.1% 8 to 14 days668 sales · 33.6% of them+7.1% 15 to 30 days248 sales · 12.5% of them−3.0% 31 to 60 days196 sales · 9.9% of them−6.2% Over 60 days153 sales · 7.7% of them−9.6%
The same 1,986 sales, grouped by how long each took to go under contract rather than by the month it was listed. The gap from the fastest group to the slowest is about 17 percentage points. Across the months with a solid sample it is about 3.7. The groups run 721, 668, 248, 196 and 153 sales, fastest to slowest.

Read it carefully: this does not show that selling quickly causes a higher price. A well-prepared home at a sensible asking price draws early offers and closes above asking, so the two are partly the same event seen twice. What it does show is that the first fortnight separates outcomes several times more sharply than the calendar does.

Source: MLSListings. Palo Alto · single-family homes · sold, listed 2021–2025. n = 1,986. Medians. Compiled 2026-09-28.

This is observational, like everything else on this page, and it does not show that speed causes price — a well-prepared home at a sensible asking price tends to produce both at once. It does put the calendar in proportion. Whatever a seller can influence showed up in the first two weeks far more than in the month they chose.

So what do you do with it

Let the move choose the calendar. Then optimize within it.

The useful conclusion from 5 years of sales is not that one month wins. It is that the calendar appears to be a weaker variable than sellers are often led to believe.

If waiting until spring gives you the time to prepare the house properly, coordinate your next purchase, finish a school year, move comfortably, or simply make the sale easier on your family, those may be excellent reasons to wait.

If the house is ready in September or October and the only reason you are considering waiting is the belief that “Palo Alto homes sell for more in spring”, this dataset does not show a consistent spring premium that would make waiting automatic.

The calendar should serve the move.
It should not create the move.

And before deciding when to sell, there is an even more important question: should you sell at all?

Should I sell my Palo Alto home now—or keep it?

If the answer is yes — or even “possibly” — then we can look at the market that exists now, the competing homes in your price range, the preparation your property needs, and the calendar that best fits what you are trying to accomplish.

Ask what this year looks like for your street

Or read what the preparation actually involves, which is the part of the calendar that does change the number — and how long a house takes to sell here, where the two weeks that matter turn out to matter far more than the month.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure on this page, and how to check it.

  • 1,986 sales. Every single-family home in Palo Alto that sold and closed between January 2021 and 2025, from MLSListings. Condominiums, townhouses and multi-family are excluded — mixing them moves the price-per-square-foot figures without meaning anything.
  • Sorted by list date, not close date. A house that closed in April was listed in February. Sorting by close date describes when escrows ended and puts every season about six weeks late.
  • Measured against the original asking price — the first number the house was advertised at, not a reduced one. A reduction followed by a full-price offer is not a sale at asking.
  • Complete years only. 2026 is still running and is left out of the month-by-month figures, because a part-year adds observations to the early months and none to the late ones. A further 45 sales were listed before 2021; they are excluded because the export only catches the slowest of them, which would drag the early figures down.
  • Sale-to-original-asking is not appreciation. Asking price is a strategic decision made before the market responds. These percentages show the relationship between launch price and closing price; they do not measure how much the underlying property increased in value.

    The groups are observational, not controlled. Homes listed in different months differ in price, condition, location, seller circumstances and other characteristics. The data can reveal patterns; it cannot establish that the month itself caused the result.

    Medians, not averages. One $30M sale moves an average and does not move a median, and this market produces those.

  • Updated 2026-09-28. Next January’s figures will be added as a further line rather than replacing these, so the page gets longer-sighted each year instead of starting again.

Maggie Ma · DRE #02117367 · Keller Williams Palo Alto

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