Should You List Before the Holidays or Wait for Spring When Selling a House in Saratoga Springs, NY?

A couple owned a 1950s Cape a few blocks off Union Avenue. In mid-October, one of them was transferred to a job starting in early February. They had planned on selling a house in Saratoga Springs, NY at some point, and now they had a deadline. The decision was whether to list before Thanksgiving or leave the house empty over the winter and list in spring, when most advice says houses sell for more. The number that mattered was the cost of carrying an empty house for about four months, which for them came to roughly $12,000 to $13,000.

They had already done some reading. Most of what they found said spring is the best season, and it is not wrong about that in general. What it did not tell them was what spring would cost them in their specific situation, with a house that would sit empty from February on.

Where the conversation started

Their starting assumption was simple. Wait until April, list into the busiest weeks of the year, get the best price. A national Realtor.com analysis published earlier in 2026 named mid-April as the best week of the year to list, based on price, demand and pace across several years of data. Their neighbors had told them roughly the same thing, and so had a cousin who sold in Clifton Park two springs ago.

The first thing we did was put local numbers next to that national advice. Realtor.com publishes county-level inventory data through the St. Louis Fed’s FRED database, and Saratoga County’s pattern over the past year looked like this:

Two things stood out to them. Winter really is slower, with the median listing in February sitting close to three months. But the number of competing houses also drops by roughly a third between October and February. A buyer shopping in December is looking at fewer choices, and the ones still looking in December usually have a reason to be.

The misconception that took the longest to undo

The idea they held onto hardest was that waiting for spring costs nothing, because while you wait there is no listing and there are no showings.

For this household, waiting meant something specific. The transferring spouse would start in February, and the other would follow within weeks. The house would be empty from roughly mid-February to whenever a spring buyer closed, which in a normal New York transaction with attorneys on both sides and a mortgage commitment to wait on lands somewhere in June. That is four months of a mortgage, property taxes, insurance, heat to keep the pipes safe, snow removal they would have to hire out, and a second housing payment in the new city running at the same time.

Most sellers ask us at this point whether an empty house sells worse. Sometimes it does, mostly because empty rooms photograph smaller and show every scuff. The bigger issue in a Capital Region winter is that an empty house still needs someone checking it after every storm. Their insurer also had vacancy terms in the policy that they had never read, and that was worth a phone call before deciding anything.

Laying the two paths side by side

Once the carrying costs were on paper, the comparison stopped being about which season is better in general and started being about this house. Here is roughly how the two options lined up for their Cape:

The spring price in that table is an estimate, not a guarantee. Saratoga County prices have climbed steadily, with the Greater Capital Association of Realtors reporting a county median near $465,000 for 2025, up about 19 percent from 2022. Rising prices make waiting look attractive. But a $10,000 spring premium, if it showed up at all, would be more than used up by four months of carrying an empty house. Selling costs do not shrink with the season either. New York’s real estate transfer tax, which the seller normally pays, runs $2 for every $500 of the sale price, about $1,760 on a $439,000 sale, whether that sale closes in January or June.

When they ran their numbers through our walk-away value estimate, the two paths came out within a few thousand dollars of each other. The difference was that one of them had them closed and done before the new job started.

What they chose, and why the price mattered more than the date

They decided to list the first week of November. The harder conversation was price. Their first instinct was to list at the spring number and let buyers come up to it. We pulled the sales from their part of the east side over the previous ninety days, the same way we would for any home valuation, and the fall sales supported something closer to $439,000 for a Cape with an original upstairs bath and a newer roof.

“We don’t list homes just to list them. We sell them, so we’re not going to tell you the price you want to hear if recent sales don’t back it up.”

Colin McDonald, Broker/Owner, McDonald Real Estate Company

This is a common mistake with fall listings in Saratoga Springs. A house priced for April but listed in November is seen by November buyers, who have fewer houses to compare and more time to notice that this one is priced above the others. By the time the price is reduced in January, it has sixty days on market and buyers start to wonder why it has not sold. We see this pattern most years, and it costs sellers more than the season ever does.

The prep was modest. Gutters cleaned and the leaves raked before photos, since fall pictures with a clean yard read well online for months. The upstairs bath got new caulk and a new light fixture, not a renovation. Walkways and the driveway were part of the plan from day one, because icy steps and a dark driveway make a poor first impression at a December showing. Our team’s broader winter selling playbook covers more of that seasonal staging detail.

What the holiday weeks actually looked like

The first weekend brought six showings, more than they expected. Two came from buyers who had been searching since summer and had lost out on houses in August, when racing season traffic and higher inventory made the city feel crowded with competition. One came from a couple relocating for a hospital job in the area who needed to close before March.

The second and third weeks were quiet. Two showings total. They asked whether it was time to drop the price, and the honest answer was not yet. In Saratoga County, the median house in November was taking more than two months, so three weeks without an offer was normal, not a warning sign.

The week before Thanksgiving, the relocating couple came back for a second showing and wrote an offer at $432,000 with a request to close in mid-January. After one counter, they settled at $436,500 with the closing date the sellers needed. The inspection turned up an older electrical panel and some grading near the back foundation. The sellers gave a $2,500 credit rather than doing the work themselves over the holidays.

Closing landed on January 16, about three weeks before the new job started. The sellers walked away with less than they had imagined in October and more than they would likely have kept after four months of carrying an empty house.

The questions that came up along the way

A few questions came up more than once, and they are the same ones most fall sellers ask.

Do buyers really shop in December? Fewer of them do, but the ones who do tend to be serious. Job moves, leases ending, and families who want to be settled before the school semester all show up in December traffic. There are fewer buyers, but they tend to be more motivated.

Should holiday decorations come down for photos? Photos should be taken before anything goes up, so the listing does not look dated in February if it is still on the market. For showings, a wreath is fine. A living room crowded with a tree and boxes is not.

What if it does not sell by January? Then the listing can be refreshed with new photos and a price set against whatever sold in December, and it is already positioned for the spring buyers who start looking in late winter. Listing in the fall does not rule out a spring sale. If the house has not sold, it is still on the market when spring buyers start looking.

Is spring better in Saratoga Springs specifically? Usually, for pace. The data shows days on market dropping sharply from February to June. But inventory climbs at the same time, so a house that would have been one of 400 choices in February becomes one of 550 by June.

What this one changed in how we frame the decision

The national advice about spring is built on averages, and averages do not include a second housing payment or the cost of heating and plowing a vacant house. For a household with no deadline, waiting for April can make sense, especially for a house that shows best with green grass and open windows. For a household with a move date in winter, the season is usually the smaller factor. Price set against current sales, and a realistic read on how long the house will sit, matter more than which month the sign goes up.

If you are weighing the same question about selling a house in Saratoga Springs, NY, start with two numbers instead of the calendar: what your house would cost you to hold, and what recent sales in your part of the city actually support. You can find more on how we work with sellers here in our Saratoga Springs real estate services, and a broader view of the steps involved in our guide to the step-by-step process of selling a home.

Sources

1. Housing Inventory: Active Listing Count in Saratoga County, NY (Realtor.com data), Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED
2. Housing Inventory: Median Days on Market in Saratoga County, NY (Realtor.com data), Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED
3. Home prices rise as market expands in Saratoga County, The Daily Gazette (citing Greater Capital Association of Realtors data)
4. Real estate transfer tax, New York State Department of Taxation and Finance
5. The best time to sell your home in 2026 (Realtor.com report coverage), FOX 5 New York