What’s the Best Day to List a Home?

Zillow

Published Aug. 28, 2016, 12:00 p.m. ET

By Sally Deneen

Try to list your home for sale on a Monday or Tuesday — and don't open it up for showings until the open house on Sunday, advises real estate agent Brendon DeSimone.

"You can build momentum," he explains, "and have a very strong first open house."

By contrast, what often happens is this: Listings hit the market late Thursday afternoon or Friday morning — a matter of hours before the Sunday open house. Sellers and real estate agents have been hurrying beforehand to clean, paint and otherwise get the place in shape to show, DeSimone notes, because "the Sunday open house, particularly the first Sunday, is the holy grail of real estate."

Thursday morning actually is best.

"Your house will be available to all the Realtors planning their weekend showings, but all day Thursday, the listing will show zero days on market," Zillow notes. "All day Friday, it will be one day on market. All day Saturday — the most important day of the real estate week — your home will show only two days on market. Obviously, the fewer days on market, the better chance the home will attract a full-price offer."

In Philadelphia, the median sale price of homes stood at $172,300 in February, an increase from the 2015 high of $166,000 in July, according to Zillow. The median home sale price in the Philadelphia metro area in February was $228,375, down from the 2015 high of $236,000 in August, according to Zillow statistics.

Zillow