EHS in 2015 by the Numbers – Part 1 – Popular Closing Dates

This blog post was written by Managing Director of Housing Research, Danielle Hale, and Data Analyst, Hua Zhong.

You probably know that home closings predominate on Fridays and the end of the month. Here is the data to back up your intuition:

• As we start the New Year, this is a good time to take a look and recap the year behind us to see what insights 2015 holds for 2016. The last sales data for December 2015 is in, and we can get a good sense of the year by looking at the data we currently have[1].
• A list of top closing days of 2015 shows that the last business day of a month and Fridays are the most popular days to complete a home sale transaction. In fact, these days are so popular that the top 25 closing days accounted for roughly a quarter of all home sale closings for the year.
• The top 7 closing days were the last business days of April, May, June, July, September, and October. The next 18 most popular days were all Fridays except for four dates, all of which were at or near the end of the month: Monday, November 30; Monday, August 31; Tuesday, March 31; and Thursday, July 30.
• Because this ranking was compiled with data that was not seasonally adjusted, we see that spring and summer days figure prominently in the top of the list, but all seasons are represented.
• This day by day data confirms the preliminary unadjusted monthly EHS data which shows that June and July were the top months for home sales in 2015, followed by August and May. In fact, June and July alone account for more than 20% of sales for 2015.
• It is expected that spring and summer months will be strong from a home sales perspective. This is why NAR Research reports seasonally adjusted home sales data each month, so we can see how sales are performing relative to what we might typically expect given the season.
• By this metric, the second half of 2015 was stronger than the first half of the year with the notable exception being November, when TRID implementation dampened closed sales[2]. We expect the strength in the second half of 2015 will carry through into 2016.
• What was your busiest day in 2015?

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[1] This analysis considers data from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015.

[2] Revisions to seasonal adjustment factors that will be made in February 2016 when 2015 data is finalized are likely to shift the precise magnitude of this figure but unlikely to change the broad trend.