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

Deciding to sell your Dallas area home is one thing. Deciding when to sell your home is another decision altogether. For example, based on historical sales data, if you list your $400,000 Irving home in July rather than October, you could sell it for nearly $21,120 more than the yearly average.

This post gives you a closer look at the best time to sell, market trends you need to know about, and insider tips to help you sell your Dallas area home faster and for more money.

Dallas housing trends

Home values in Dallas are rising on pace with the national average and continuing to show a strong seller’s market.

In April 2022, the median list price for a Dallas home was $529,900, with a median price per square foot at $240 — a 25% year-over-year increase.

In recent years, Dallas homes have been selling fast year-round. The average days on market (DOM) — from listing to signed contract — for the area is around 34 days.

The “months of inventory” for Dallas is at about one month, meaning it would take one month for currently-listed homes to sell given the sales pace the area is experiencing.

If an area has more months’ supply, six, for example, the inventory is typically considered more balanced and associated with moderate price appreciation. A lower number of months will typically push prices up more rapidly, which is what the Dallas housing market has been experiencing. We’ll look at housing inventory needs again in our Dallas selling trends section below.

With a population of around 1.3 million, Dallas is the third most populous city in Texas. The Dallas-Fort Worth metro area has a population of just over 6.4 million — a 1.42% increase from 2021.

The growing population and rising home values have many Dallas area homeowners wondering if now is a good time to sell. If you’re considering a home sale, listing your property in the best month can help you close faster or make more money.

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

“In Dallas, it’s typical for home sales to begin rising around the first of the year and continue to rise through the spring and summer months,” says Scott Neal, a top real estate agent in the market. He works with over 68% more single-family homes and sells properties 59% quicker than the average agent in the area.

The best time to sell your home in Dallas also depends on certain regional trends specific to the city, which we’ll dig into in a little bit.

Keep in mind that the timeline of selling a home includes listing the home, conducting showings and open houses, assessing offers, accepting an offer, and then closing.

After accepting an offer, the closing process can take around 50 days. Currently, homes in Dallas are staying on the market for about 34 days from listing to contract. With this in mind, the best time to list your home is about three months before you actually want to close on it.

Let’s take a look at real estate transaction data for Dallas 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 Dallas

Best times to sell a house in Fort Worth

Best times to sell a house in Garland

Best times to sell a house in Irving

Best times to sell a house in Plano

Best times to sell a house in Coppell

Best times to sell a house in Arlington

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.

HomeLight also offers a Home Value Estimator to help you get a ballpark idea of what your home might be worth right now. And for an even better estimate of your home’s current value and the best month to sell in your market, talk to a top-performing real estate agent in the Dallas area.

6 selling trends in Dallas

1. Low housing inventory

The trend of low housing inventory that has plagued the nation as a whole is also a factor in Dallas real estate. According to the Texas Real Estate Research Center, developers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area increased the number of new vacant developed lots (VDLs) by 13.1% in an effort to ease the housing shortage, though it will take more to raise supply to meet the demand. Even though builders in Dallas-Fort Worth built around 59,000 houses in 2021, the area is still falling about 170,000 houses short of consumer demand.

2. High number of inbound moves

According to a study from Zillow, Dallas-Fort Worth saw the most net inbound moves in 2021, with many new residents relocating from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Phoenix. With people moving into the area, it’s exacerbating the inventory shortage and making it difficult for people to find affordable homes.

3. Homes receive multiple offers

Redfin data shows that homes in Dallas receive an average of five offers. According to a report from residential real estate brokerage Compass, it’s not uncommon for a coveted Dallas property to receive upwards of 50 offers. This means that if you see a home you want, you need to act quickly to get an offer in.

4. Robust year-round market

Though there are seasonal trends, Neal points out “We have a very robust market pretty much all year round because we don’t really have a winter season.” He goes on to say, “Jobs are always coming and going. It’s a big market in Dallas-Fort Worth, so things are a lot more even than they might be in some other markets.”

5. Cash offers are on the rise

In January 2022, 27% of national home sales were all-cash offers compared with 23% in December 2021 and 19% in January 2021, and this trend holds true in Dallas as well. The  Compass report mentioned above cites that listed homes are not only receiving multiple offers, but many of these offers are all-cash offers with full appraisal waivers.

6. Sales follow seasonal trends

Though the market in Dallas is robust year-round, Neal does observe seasonal trends in sales, saying, “The market pretty much follows that normal seasonal trend where the lowest amount of sales happen in January and the largest amount of sales happen in June or July.” Neal notes, “The market ebbs and flows pretty regularly and goes up about 40% between January and the end of summer.”

Connect With a Top Agent to Sell Your Dallas Home

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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.

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Insider tips to help sell your Dallas home

No matter what time of year you decide to list and sell your home, these expert tips will help you sell your house whether your goal is to sell your house fast or for top dollar — or both!

Neal says that the number one way to get the most out of your home sale is to prepare. He breaks the home sale process into four phases:

1. Prepare
2. Market
3. Negotiate
4. Close

To make the rest of the process run smoothly, phase one is the most important: Prepare.

Preparing a house for sale requires some legwork. Neal recommends a pre-listing inspection, which is essentially the same as a typical home inspection except that the seller pays for it before listing their home on the market.

“[This way] we know what we’re dealing with. You don’t want anything to catch you by surprise.” He goes on to say, “The second thing is the house should be super clean, and the third thing would be staging.” Finally, make sure the house is priced appropriately for the market.

Of these things, Neal sees professional staging as giving sellers the most leverage and the biggest return on investment, noting that, “Statistics show that a staged home versus an unstaged home sells for about 7% more money on average and in 50% of the time.”

If the home is still occupied, you probably won’t have to spend much more than the consultation fee and then use some elbow grease to implement the recommendations.

Neal’s number one piece of advice to sellers in the Dallas area is “Just realize that you’re always in a price war and a beauty contest. Sometimes it’s hard to win and sometimes it’s easy to win. It just happens to be easy right now.”

Answers to other Dallas home-selling questions

Are homes in Dallas appreciating in value faster or slower than other similar-sized cities?

Dallas home values are appreciating at roughly 20%, the same rate as the country as a whole but higher than the Texas appreciation rate of 15.6% annually. Similar cities like Denver, Colorado, and Phoenix, Arizona have seen home price appreciation at 19.9% and 32.35% respectively.

To get a ballpark estimate for the value of your home, you can use HomeLight’s Home Value Estimator. Our free tool uses transaction data from multiple sources to create a real-time ballpark value estimate based on current home trends in this rapidly changing market.

What if I need a fast sale and closing in Dallas?

If you’re facing a life change that requires a faster home sale, or you want to avoid repairs and other home preparations, you can request an all-cash offer from HomeLight’s Simple Sale platform. With this service, you’ll get a cash offer on a home in almost any condition in Dallas. You just fill out a short questionnaire and will receive a no-obligation cash offer within 48 hours. Once you accept, you can close in as little as 10 days and be on your way to your next home.

What is the biggest mistake sellers make when selling a home in Dallas? 

The biggest mistake that sellers make in the Dallas area is not taking the time to properly stage their home and position it correctly in the market. Getting the home ready for open houses and showings with the help of a professional stager and then working with your agent to price the home correctly will help the home sell faster and for more money.

Find a top agent in Dallas for a successful home sale

Now that you know the best times to sell your home in Dallas, the next step is to work with a highly qualified real estate agent. Our data shows that the top 5% of real estate agents across the country can help your home sell faster and for as much as 10% more than the average agent.

When it’s time to sell, partner with a top Dallas agent by using HomeLight’s free Agent Match platform. Our matching service tool analyzes over 27 million transactions and thousands of reviews to determine which agent is best for you based on your needs. Your agent will walk you through the process of preparing your home, getting it on the market, handling negotiations, and closing on the home.

Header Image Source: (James Khashchuk / Unsplash)