The Q4 window
November is the quietest month in North Fulton’s $1M+ market. January carries the highest median price of the year. Both of those things are true at once, and the reason tells you most of what you need to know about who is still shopping after Thanksgiving.
Based on 983 closed sales above $1 million across Alpharetta, Milton, Johns Creek and Roswell in the twelve months to September 2026. Source: First Multiple Listing Service (FMLS).
The quietest months. And the dearest ones.
Almost every seller I meet in October has absorbed the same piece of folk wisdom: list in spring, because that is when the buyers are. The first half of that is true. June was the busiest month in this window, with 126 closings above $1 million across North Fulton, against 49 in November— the quietest.
The second half does not follow. The month with the highest median sale price in the same window was January, at $1,550,000. The month with the lowest was May — $1,275,000— in the middle of the busy season everyone is told to wait for. December came in at $1,432,500, roughly 12% above May, on 80 closings.
I want to be careful with that, because a median is a blunt instrument and it moves with the mix of homes that happen to close. Look at price per square foot and the picture is more honest: December’s was $254 per foot, near the bottom of the year, while January’s was the highest at $281. So December is not a month when every house fetches more per foot. It is a month when larger, more expensive houses close— which is a different claim, and the one the data actually supports.
One more caveat, stated plainly because it matters: this window holds a single November, a single December and a single January. It describes what happened over twelve months. It does not prove a yearly cycle, and I would not want anyone to price a house as though it did.
| Month closed | Sales | Median price | $/sq ft | Days to close |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 25 | 84 | 1.40M | $279 | 58 |
| Nov 25 | 49 | 1.45M | $256 | 55 |
| Dec 25 | 80 | 1.43M | $254 | 71 |
| Jan 26 | 50 | 1.55M | $281 | 85 |
| Feb 26 | 67 | 1.42M | $265 | 60 |
| Mar 26 | 83 | 1.36M | $268 | 52 |
| Apr 26 | 91 | 1.35M | $265 | 51 |
| May 26 | 103 | 1.27M | $252 | 47 |
| Jun 26 | 126 | 1.34M | $261 | 57 |
| Jul 26 | 118 | 1.36M | $255 | 60 |
| Aug 26 | 72 | 1.39M | $251 | 57 |
| Sep 26still filling in | 60 | 1.54M | $260 | 61 |
Closed sales of $1,000,000 and above in Alpharetta, Milton, Johns Creek and Roswell, grouped by the month they closed. “Days to close” is measured from the day the home went on the market to the day it closed, so it includes the escrow period — a longer measure than the days-on-market figure in the monthly market report, which runs only to contract. The newest month is still recording late closings and is left out of the comparisons above.
Nobody tours a house in December for fun.
Here I have to be straight with you about what the data can and cannot show. The numbers above are closed sales; they tell me when homes sold, for how much, and how long they took. They tell me nothing about why anyone bought. What follows is not a finding from the data. It is what I see in my own transactions, and you should weigh it as that.
The person walking through a $2 million house on a dark Tuesday evening in mid-December is not browsing. In my experience they are working against a date they did not choose and cannot move. A start date at a new employer in January. A corporate relocation with a reporting deadline. A lease that ends. A family situation that has already been decided and now just needs an address.
That is the whole difference between the December buyer and the June buyer. In June I show homes to people who are seeing what is out there, who have been looking since February, and who can comfortably decide to wait for something better. Most of them are genuine. But a meaningful share of them are not going to transact this season, and part of my job in June is telling the difference.
In December that problem largely solves itself. The weather is bad, the calendar is full, and nobody gives up a Saturday in the middle of the holidays to tour a house they are idly curious about. The pool is smaller. It is also almost entirely composed of people who have to move.
That has a practical consequence at the negotiating table that sellers consistently underestimate. A buyer with a fixed date negotiates differently from a buyer with an open one. They will press you on timing, on closing dates, on what conveys and on repairs — and they are often far less willing to spend three weeks grinding over the last one percent of price, because three weeks is something they do not have. That is not a licence to overprice. It is a reason not to assume a year-end offer is a lowball before you have read it.
The year-end buyer buys the house that has been sitting.
This is the part of the data I did not expect, and it is the most useful thing on this page if your home has been on the market since the summer.
Of the November, December and January closings in this window, 36% were homes that had been listed at least 90 days before they closed. For closings in May through July, the same figure was 21%. Year-end buyers are roughly 1.7 times as likely to be buying a listing that had already been sitting.
That follows directly from the kind of buyer it is. If your timeline is fixed, the spring listings are no use to you — they do not exist yet. You buy from what is actually on the market in November. The home that three summer buyers passed over because they were still comparing it against everything else is, to a buyer who has to be in a house by February, simply the available one.
There is a second number pointing the same way. 80% of those year-end closings were homes that first came on the market between September and December — in other words, fall listings that found their buyer before the year was out. The idea that a home listed in the fall sits untouched until spring is not what happened here.
I would draw one practical conclusion and resist a bigger one. The practical conclusion: withdrawing your home in mid-November, which is what a great many sellers do, takes it off the market during the weeks when the buyers least able to wait are the ones shopping. The bigger conclusion I will not draw for you is whether to hold, reprice or relist in spring — that depends on your home and your own timeline, and I have written about that decision in more detail here.
Working backwards from December 31.
If a year-end close matters to you — and for some sellers it genuinely does — the timeline is less forgiving than it looks, because the relevant clock is not how long it takes to find a buyer. It is how long it takes to finish.
Homes that closed in December in this window took a median of 70.5 days from going on the market to closing — about 10 weeks. January closings took 84.5 days, roughly 12 weeks, the longest of any month in the window. Measured that way, a home going on the market in the second half of October is already working against the calendar for a December close.
Two things stretch that further at this time of year, and neither shows up in a median. Appraisers, inspectors and closing attorneys all run shorter weeks through late November and December, and lenders are working the same holidays your buyer is. A contract that would clear in thirty days in April can want forty-five in December. Build the slack in at the start rather than discovering it in the third week of the month.
If your own reason for wanting a year-end close is financial or tax-related, that is a conversation for your accountant rather than your agent, and worth having before you set a list date rather than after. What I can tell you is the market timeline. What it is worth to you is someone else’s department.
For the wider picture — where supply sits in Alpharetta, Milton, Johns Creek and Roswell, currently running between 4.4 and 6 months of detached inventory, and how fast homes are going under contract in each — the North Fulton Luxury Market Report is refreshed every month from the same FMLS data behind this article.
Questions sellers ask in October.
Is December a bad time to sell a luxury home in North Fulton?
Not on the evidence. In the twelve months to September 2026, 80 homes above $1 million closed in December across Alpharetta, Milton, Johns Creek and Roswell — more than in November (49) and more than in several months people think of as ordinary selling season. The December median was $1,432,500, about 12% above May, which was the year's lowest. The honest caveat is that this window contains one December, so it describes what happened rather than proving a yearly pattern. But the common advice to wait for spring is not supported by it.
Do luxury buyers disappear over the holidays?
Volume thins — November was the quietest month in the window at 49 closings against 126 in June. What changes more than the number of buyers is their composition. The people still touring a $2 million house in the week between Christmas and New Year's are, in my experience, working against a date they do not control: a January start at a new employer, a lease ending, a family timetable already set. Browsers stay home in December. That is a thinner pool, not a weaker one.
My home has been on the market since the summer. Should I keep it listed through the holidays?
This is the question the data speaks to most directly. Year-end buyers disproportionately buy listings that have already been sitting: 36% of November, December and January closings in this window were homes listed at least 90 days earlier, against 21% of May-to-July closings — roughly 1.7 times the share. A buyer with a fixed date is far more willing to take the house that is actually available than to wait for the spring listings. Withdrawing in November removes your home from the market precisely when the buyers least able to wait are shopping. Whether that is right for your home still depends on your price, condition and timeline.
If I want to close by December 31, when do I need to list?
Work backwards from the measured timeline rather than from optimism. Homes that closed in December in this window took a median of 70.5 days from going on the market to closing — roughly 10 weeks — and January closings took 84.5 days, about 12 weeks and the longest of any month. That points to being on the market by around mid-October for a realistic December close. Note that this figure is list-to-close and includes the whole escrow period, so it is a longer measure than the days-on-market number in the monthly market report, which runs only to contract.
Do homes sell for less in the winter?
Not in this window, and the direction is the opposite of what most sellers expect. The highest median month was January at $1,550,000; the lowest was May at $1,275,000, in the middle of peak season. But read the per-square-foot figures alongside the medians before concluding there is a year-end premium. December's median price per square foot was $254, near the bottom of the range, which says larger homes were closing rather than every home fetching more per foot. January is the month that was genuinely strong on both measures.
What is the right move for my specific home this quarter?
That depends on things no seasonal article can see: your street, your condition, what has sold near you in the last ninety days, and how firm your own timeline is. Market-wide patterns tell you what the weather is doing; they cannot tell you what your house is worth or whether to hold it. That is what a comparative market analysis is for — a senior agent walking your home, pricing it against real recent comparable sales, and giving you a straight answer about the next eight weeks.
What is your home worth in this market?
Everything above describes a market. None of it prices a house. Your street, your condition, and what has actually closed near you in the last ninety days decide that — and those take a senior agent walking the property, not a formula. If you are weighing the next eight weeks, that conversation is the place to start.
Figures on this page are medians of closed FMLS sales in the $1,000,000-and-above market and move with the mix of homes that close. Market commentary, not an appraisal, a guarantee of value, or tax advice.