Finance
Homes listed in June often sell for more than usual, a Zillow study reveals
Sellers can get $7,700 more, on average, than the original listing price if they list in the spring. (iStock)
Homeowners looking to sell this year may want to wait until June to list, when sellers tend to make the most. In 2023, homes listed in June sold for 2.3% more, according to a Zillow analysis. This equals an additional $7,700, on average, to the median sale price. Before the pandemic, May used to be the best month to list, according to Zillow. But, since 2019, June is more profitable.
“The old logic was that sellers could earn a premium by listing in late spring when their home would be on the top of the pile of listings when search activity was at its peak. Now, with persistently low inventory, mortgage rate fluctuations make their own seasonality,” Skylar Olsen, Zillow chief economist, said.
Location impacts the exact month that’s best for sellers to list. In San Francisco, the best time to list is the second half of February, but in New York and Philadelphia, the first half of July brings higher home prices.
The table below shows 10 of the major real estate markets and when the best home listing time is within those markets:
| Location | Best Time to List | Price Premium | Profit Boost |
| New York, NY | First half of July | 2.4 % | $15,500 |
| Los Angeles, CA | First half of May | 4.1 % | $39,300 |
| Chicago, IL | First half of June | 2.8 % | $8,800 |
| Dallas, TX | First half of June | 2.5 % | $9,200 |
| Houston, TX | Second half of April | 2.0 % | $6,200 |
| Washington, DC | Second half of June | 2.2 % | $12,700 |
| Philadelphia, PA | First half of July | 2.4 % | $8,200 |
| Miami, FL | First half of June | 2.3 % | $12,900 |
| Atlanta, GA | Second half of June | 2.3 % | $8,700 |
| Boston, MA | Second half of May | 3.5 % | $23,600 |
This year in particular may be an interesting year as buyers wait to see if the Federal Reserve will drop interest rates.
“First-time home buyers who are on the edge of qualifying for a home loan may dip in and out of the market, depending on what’s happening with rates. It is almost certain the Federal Reserve will push back any interest-rate cuts to mid-2024 at the earliest. If mortgage rates follow, that could bring another surge of buyers later this year,” Olsen said.
If you think you’re ready to shop around for a home loan, consider using Credible to help you easily compare interest rates from multiple lenders in minutes.
HOMEBUYERS GAINED THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS AS MORTGAGE INTEREST RATES FALL: REDFIN
Home affordability remains a hurdle for prospective homebuyers
While sellers make out well in the spring buying rush, homebuyers face record-high home prices and bidding wars.
In a recent congressional hearing, Dr. Jessica Lautz, the deputy chief economist and vice president of research at the National Association of REALTORS®, laid out the current conditions of the housing market. She explained that the annual number of home sales for existing homes is the lowest it’s been since 1995.
Buyers aren’t buying for numerous reasons. Lautz cited more frequent bidding wars and a lack of inventory on the market. As of January, the average seller receives 2.7 offers. Plus, 16% of homes that did sell were over the list price.
“First-time home buyers continue to struggle to enter the housing market lacking the housing equity that boosts the purchasing power of repeat buyers,” Lautz said. “First-time buyers accounted for 32% of primary-residence buyers last year, which remains well under the historical norm of 40%. While there is a smaller share of first-time buyers, they are also older than they have been historically.”
In the 1980s, the typical first-time buyer was in their late 20s; however, they are now in their mid 30s,” Lautz continued.
She further explained that the average first-time buyer that successfully bought a home had an income that was about $25,000 higher than those who bought last year. This creates a divide in wealth between homeowners and renters.
“The wealth held by homeowners is 40 times that of a renter,” according to Lautz. “Housing wealth can be used to help children attend college, pay for remodeling costs on the home, in retirement or even help their own children achieve the dream of homeownership.”
If you’re looking to purchase a home in today’s market, you can explore your mortgage options by visiting Credible to compare rates and lenders and get a mortgage preapproval letter in minutes.
HOMEBUYERS CONSIDERING PURCHASING TINY HOMES AND FIXER-UPPERS TO COMBAT HIGH HOME PRICES
Certain states continue to face high homeowners insurance rates
Adding to the cost of homeownership, homeowner insurance rates are increasing throughout the entire country. For a $300,000 property, homeowners insurance rose by 12% in 2023 and now averages $1,770 annually, according to Insurify data.
Certain states are getting the brunt of rising rates. Florida remains the state most affected by rate hikes, with homeowners now paying $9,213 annually, on average. Additionally, some California residents who use State Farm will have their policies pulled altogether, the company announced. About 30,000 homeowners policies, rental policies and other property insurance policies won’t be renewed.
“This decision was not made lightly and only after careful analysis of State Farm General’s financial health, which continues to be impacted by inflation, catastrophe exposure, reinsurance costs, and the limitations of working within decades-old insurance regulations,” the release said.
The non-renewals will happen on a rolling basis over the course of the next year. Beginning July 3, homeowners and renters, as well as businesses with property coverage won’t be able to seek renewal.
While homeowners insurance may be high, you can try to lower your housing costs by shopping around for low mortgage rates. Credible lets you view multiple mortgage lenders and provide you with personalized rates, all without impacting your credit.
NORTH CAROLINA’S INSURANCE RATES HIKE DENIED, RATES IN OTHER STATES STILL RISING
Have a finance-related question, but don’t know who to ask? Email The Credible Money Expert at [email protected] and your question might be answered by Credible in our Money Expert column.
Cybersecurity and enterprise software stocks have been market dogs in 2026, with fears that AI will wipe out a wide range of companies in the enterprise space dominating the narrative. But they snapped a brutal losing streak this past week, joining in the broader market rally that saw all losses from the U.S.-Iran war regained by the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500.
Cybersecurity has been “a victim of some of the AI-related headlines,” Christian Magoon, Amplify ETFs CEO, said on this week’s “ETF Edge.”
It wasn’t just niche cybersecurity names. Take Microsoft, for example, which was recently down close to 20% for the year. Its shares surged last week by 13%.
A big driver of the pummeling in software stocks was a rotation within tech by investors to AI infrastructure and semiconductors and some other names in large-cap tech, Magoon said, and since cybersecurity stocks and ETFs are heavily weighted towards software companies, they were left behind even as those businesses continue to grow on a fundamental basis.
But Wall Street now has become more bullish with the stocks at lower levels. Brent Thill, Jefferies tech analyst, said last week that the worst may be over for software stocks. “I think that this concept that software is dead, and then Anthropic and OpenAI are going to kill the entire industry, is just over-exaggerated,” he said on CNBC’s “Money Movers” on Wednesday.
“Big Short” investor Michael Burry wrote in a Substack post on Wednesday that he is becoming bullish about software stocks after the recent selloff. “Software stocks remain interesting because of accelerated extreme declines last week arising from a reflexive positive feedback loop between falling software stocks and changes in the market for their bank debt,” he wrote.
The Global X Cybersecurity ETF (BUG), is down about 12% since the beginning of the year, with top holdings including Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Akamai Technologies and CrowdStrike. But BUG was up 12% last week. The First Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) is down 6% for the year, but up 9% in the past week.
Piper Sandler analyst Rob Owens reiterated an “overweight” rating on Palo Alto Networks which helped the stock pop 7% — it is now down roughly 6% on the year. Its peers saw similar moves, including CrowdStrike.
Performance of Global X cybersecurity ETF versus S&P 500 over past one-year period.
Magoon said expectations may have become too high in cybersecurity, and with a crowding effect among investors, solid results were not enough to to push stocks higher. But the down-and-then-back-up 2026 for the sector is also a reminder that when stocks fall sharply in a short period of time, opportunity may knock.
“Once you’re down over 10% in some of these subsectors, you start to see the contrarians start to say, ‘well, maybe I’ll take a look at this,'” Magoon said.
He said AI does add both opportunity and uncertainty to the cybersecurity equation, increasing demand but also introducing new competition. But he added, “I think the dip is good to buy in an AI-driven world,” specifically because the risks to companies may lead to more M&A in cyber names that benefits the stocks.
For now, investors may look for opportunity on the margins rather than rush back into beaten-up tech names. “I think investors are still going to remain underweight software,” Thill said.
But Magoon advises investors to at least take the reminder to keep an eye on niches in the market during pronounced downturns. “The best-performing are often the least bought and do the best over the next 12 months versus late-in-the-game piling on,” he said.
While that may have been a mindset that worked against the last investors into cybersecurity and enterprise software in mid-2025 when the negative sentiment started building, at least for now, it’s started working for the stocks in the sector again.
Meanwhile, this year’s biggest winner is also a good example of what can be an extended trade in either a bullish or bearish direction. Last year, institutional ownership of energy was at multi-year lows, Magoon said, referencing Bank of America data. “Reverse sentiment can be a great indicator,” he said.
But he cautioned that any selective buying of stocks that have dipped does have to contend with the risk that there is a potentially bigger drawdown in the market yet to come in 2026. That is because midterm election years historically have been marked by large drawdowns. “If you think it is bad right now, it could get a lot worse,” Magoon said. But he added that there’s a silver-lining in that data, too, for the patient investor. The market has posted very strong 12-month returns after midterm election drawdowns end. So, for investors with a longer-term time horizon and no need for short-term liquidity, Magoon said, “stick in there.”
Sign up for our weekly newsletter that goes beyond the livestream, offering a closer look at the trends and figures shaping the ETF market.
New innovation in the exchange-traded fund industry could come at a cost to investors during extreme conditions.
According to MFS Investment Management’s Jamie Harrison, ETFs involved in increasingly complex derivatives and less transparent markets may be in uncharted territory when it comes to violent downturns.
“Those would be something that you’d want to keep an eye on as volatility ramps up,” the firm’s head of ETF capital markets told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “As innovation continues to increase at a rapid pace within the ETF wrapper, [it’s] definitely something that we advise our clients to be really front-footed about… Lack of transparency could absolutely be an issue if we’re going to start seeing some deep sell-offs.”
His firm has been around since 1924 and is known for inventing the open-end mutual fund. Last year, ETF.com named MFS Investment Management as the best new ETF issuer.
“It’s important to do due diligence on the portfolio,” he said. “Having a firm that has deep partnerships, deep bench of subject matter experts that plays with the A-team in terms of the Street and liquidity providers available [are] super important.”
Liquidity as the real issue?
Harrison suggested the real issue is liquidity, particularly during a steep sell-off.
“We’ve all seen the news and the headlines around potential private credit ETFs. That picture becomes much more murky,” he added. “It’s up to advisors, to investors [and] to clients to really dig in and look under the hood and engage with their issuers.”
He noted investors will have to ask some tough questions.
“What does this look like in a 20% drawdown? How does this liquidity facility work? Am I going to be able to get in? Am I going to be able to get out? And if I’m able to get out, am I able to get out at a price that’s tight to NAV [net asset value], and what’s the infrastructure at your shop in terms of managing that consideration for me,” said Harrison.
Amplify ETFs’ Christian Magoon is also concerned about these newer ETF strategies could weather a monster drawdown. He listed private credit as a red flag.
“If your ETF owns private credit, I think it’s worth taking a look at, kind of what the standards are around liquidity and how that ETF is trading, because that should be a bit of a mismatch between the trading pace of ETFs and the underlying asset,” the firm’s CEO said in the same interview.
Magoon also highlighted potential issues surrounding equity-linked notes. The notes provide fixed income security while offering potentially higher returns linked to stocks or equity indexes.
“Those could potentially be in stress due to redemptions and the underlying credit risk. That’s another kind of unique derivative,” Magoon said. “I would very closely look at any ETF that has equity-linked notes should we get into a major drawdown or there be a contagion in private credit or something related to the banking system.”
What that means for consumer loans
Checks and Balance newsletter: Of God and MAGA
Why software stocks, 2026’s market dogs, have joined the rally
Armanino adds Strategic Accounting Outsourced Solutions
New 2023 K-1 instructions stir the CAMT pot for partnerships and corporations
