Should You List Your Westside Home This Summer, or Wait for the Fall Window?

A seller called me this week asking if she'd missed her window by not listing back in May. Short answer: no. But the longer answer is more interesting, and it's specific to Colorado Springs in a way most generic "best time to sell" articles never mention.

Nationally, the advice is usually May and June for speed, August through October for a second, quieter wave of serious buyers. Colorado Springs follows that pattern too, but we've got an extra variable layered on top: Peterson Space Force Base and Fort Carson together account for roughly 17% of local employment, and PCS orders run heaviest from May through August. Military buyers move on the government's timeline, not the calendar's, and they need to close fast. That's real, motivated demand that most markets simply don't have.

So here's the actual tradeoff. List now, through August, and you're competing with more inventory, but you're also in front of buyers who have to be under contract by a hard date. List in September or October, and you'll likely see less competition from other sellers, but also a smaller, more price-sensitive buyer pool since the PCS rush has passed. Neither one is wrong. It depends on your home, your zip, and honestly, on you.

What I'm actually telling sellers right now

If your home is in solid, move-in-ready shape and priced right, I'd lean toward listing before Labor Day. With days on market running around 45 (up from closer to 40 a year ago) and inventory holding at a 3.3-month supply, you still want to catch as much of that PCS-driven urgency as you can. A property in 80919 or 80906, both of which sit close to Peterson and the north side commute corridor, tends to see this effect most directly.

If your home needs work, or if you're a Westside Boomer or senior thinking through a rightsize and the idea of packing up a house in the middle of a Colorado summer sounds physically brutal, waiting for September isn't a bad call at all. I say that as someone who's done plenty of moves in July heat. Heavy boxes, awkward furniture, and a garage that's somehow 15 degrees hotter than everything else. I've had clients tell me flatly that the biggest reason they wanted to wait wasn't the market, it was not wanting to do the move itself in August. That's a legitimate factor, not a weakness, and part of my job as an SRES is helping you build a timeline that accounts for it, not just the comps.

Here's how I actually walk clients through the decision. First, we look at the home itself: does it show well right now, or does it need two or three weeks of prep, paint touch-ups, decluttering, maybe a few repairs before it's ready for photos. If it needs real prep time, that alone can push you naturally into a September or October listing regardless of the PCS calendar. Second, we look at the zip. A move-in-ready home in 80919 or 80906, both within easy reach of Peterson, tends to get more traffic from PCS buyers on a deadline than a similar home further from the base corridors. Third, and this is the one people skip, we talk honestly about the move itself. Who's doing the packing, who's doing the heavy lifting, and whether trying to cram all of that into the hottest six weeks of the year is realistic or just something you feel like you're supposed to do.

I had a client last summer who was dead set on listing in June because "that's when you're supposed to sell." Once we actually mapped out her timeline, prepping the house, coordinating a mover, and handling it largely on her own, September made far more sense, and she still closed within three weeks of listing. The market didn't punish her for waiting. If anything, a calmer pace let her present the home better than a rushed June listing would have.

There's no universal right answer here, and anyone who tells you there is hasn't looked at your specific street. What I can tell you is that Colorado Springs' military economy means "wait until fall, it's always calmer" isn't quite true here the way it is in a lot of other cities. Let's look at your home and your zip specifically before you decide.