The busy home-shopping season is rapidly approaching, and prospective buyers may wonder whether a hotter market is really a good thing. When is the best time to buy an apartment in NYC? Do buyers really get better deals during the peak season, or simply more choices?

Actually, both. While we find that the best time to rent is ambiguous — the rentals market offers the best options in the summer but the best deals in the winter — our analysis shows that the for-sale market is different. Peak home buying season occurs twice throughout the year, once in the spring and once in the fall, when buyers will find more choices, hotter inventory, more discounts, and lower prices.

Of course, the “best” time to buy is a personal decision that depends on many factors beyond market conditions. If you find the right place for you during the off season, go for it — keeping in mind that you’ll face a different home shopping landscape at different times.

Buyers Have the Most Choices in Spring and the Fewest in Winter

Peak home-buying season is marked by the highest levels of inventory and demand. While buyers face more competition from each other during peak season, high inventory levels mean plenty of options. These trends are most prominent in the spring, and occur again, to a lesser extent, in the fall. Buyers will see the most selection from April through June, when sellers rush to put their homes on the market, knowing that this, in turn, is when demand peaks. Inventory levels rise again in October, after summer vacation and the back-to-school rush. Inventory levels are lowest in the winter months, from December to February. These variations mean that prospective buyers looking in May have access to almost 2,000 more units than those looking in December, relative to an average of 15,000 units per month in 2017.