The Cyr Team

When Buyers Look

Home showing activity follows a clear seasonal pattern. Understanding that pattern can make the decision about when to list — or when to start looking — less of a guess.

Quick Answer

In Pennsylvania, buyer showing activity builds earlier than many people expect. From 2022 through 2025, March averaged 97% of April’s activity, buyer traffic remained relatively steady immediately after Labor Day, and December averaged about half of April’s showing activity.

December sees about half the showing activity of April.

Every month below is shown as a share of April, the busiest month in the 2022–2025 Pennsylvania data.
Buyer showing activity by month, as a share of the busiest month.

When does the spring housing market really start?

By March, showing activity has already reached 97% of the April peak.

That means buyer activity is already near its annual high before April begins. For sellers, the practical takeaway is that waiting for the calendar to say “spring” can mean entering a market that is already well underway.

Does buyer activity drop after Labor Day?

Not immediately. Showing activity in the three weeks following Labor Day stayed at or slightly above its pre-holiday level in each of the four years measured, 2022 through 2025.

The market does not fall off when summer ends. The steeper seasonal decline comes later in the fall.

October has been closing the gap with April

Measured against April, October showing activity rose from 62% in 2022 to 85% in 2025.

That does not necessarily mean fall demand increased on its own. It means the difference between October and the traditional spring peak became smaller over those four years.

The broader takeaway is that fall has recently looked less different from spring than it once did.

More buyers does not automatically mean a better sale

Spring brings the most showing activity, but showing activity is only one part of the market.

This data tells us how much buyer activity is occurring. It does not, by itself, tell us what a particular home will sell for.

Timing is still only one variable. Price, condition, location, competing properties and the individual home can all materially affect the result.

If you are selling

If you are buying

Start from when you can be ready

Choose the month the home would go live and roughly how long it may take to go under contract. This shows the buyer activity the home would likely encounter at launch and around the expected contract window.

It describes buyer activity only. It does not predict what a home will sell for.

Month you would list

How quickly homes are going under contract

If you list in April

How this was measured

ShowingTime publishes Pennsylvania showing-activity data as weekly averages. We analyzed 2022 through 2025 and indexed each year to its own April, allowing us to compare the seasonal pattern across years.

The analysis shows how buyer activity changes through the calendar. It does not measure total market size from one year to another, and it does not predict the outcome for an individual property.

See methodology and limitations

Source

Each published value is a weekly average rather than a daily count, and is expressed as a change against a reference rather than as a raw number of showings. The partial 2026 year is excluded throughout.

The October comparison

October’s rise from 62% to 85% of April is a ratio between two months within the same year. It can reflect October strengthening, April weakening, or both. This data cannot separate those explanations, which is why the finding is stated as a narrowing gap rather than as growth in fall demand.

The Labor Day window

For each year, the weekly average for the week before that year’s Labor Day is set to 100 and the following three weeks are read against it. Labor Day moves — September 5, 4, 2 and 1 across these four years — so each year is anchored to its own date rather than a fixed one. Because the source publishes weekly averages, any single-day or single-week spike is already smoothed before it reaches this analysis; only multi-week patterns are readable here.

Coverage

ShowingTime covers its largest markets in each state, so this describes the broad Pennsylvania pattern rather than any one town, school district, price band, or property type.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the spring housing market really start?

Buyer activity begins rising well before April. In the Pennsylvania ShowingTime data analyzed here, March averaged 97% of April’s showing activity from 2022 through 2025.

What month has the most home buyer activity?

April was the busiest month in the 2022–2025 Pennsylvania showing data used for this analysis.

Does buyer activity drop off after Labor Day?

Not right away. In Pennsylvania showing data from 2022 through 2025, activity in the three weeks after Labor Day held at or slightly above the level of the week before the holiday in every year. The larger seasonal decline comes later in the fall.

Is fall still a good time to sell a house?

Fall has less overall showing activity than spring, but the gap has narrowed in recent years. Whether fall is a good time to sell depends on the property, competition, pricing, and the seller’s circumstances — not the calendar alone.

Is winter a bad time to sell a house?

Not necessarily. Winter brings fewer showings, but timing is only one factor in a sale. Sellers should expect a smaller audience and plan accordingly rather than assume there is no market.

Source: Showing activity data courtesy of ShowingTime, a Zillow Group brand. Pennsylvania statewide data, 2022–2025.