Hey! I went looking for something specific this week, and the answer surprised me enough that I had to write it up.
Here is the question I wanted to answer. Forget price for a second. If you are a seller, the thing that actually determines how your listing feels is how many other houses the buyers are choosing from. So which month gives you the fewest competitors per buyer?
I pulled twelve months of Knoxville numbers and ranked them. The two winners are the two months almost nobody lists in.
How I measured it
For every month I took the number of new single family listings that came on the market in the city of Knoxville, and the number of homes that went under contract that same month. Then I divided.
A high number means buyers are absorbing almost everything that comes on. A low number means new listings are piling up faster than buyers can take them.
It is a rough measure and it is not the same as your odds of selling. But it is the closest thing I have found to a read on how crowded it feels out there.
The ranking
| Month | New listings | Went under contract | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 2025 | 543 | 507 | 0.93 |
| December 2025 | 420 | 392 | 0.93 |
| February 2026 | 581 | 504 | 0.87 |
| January 2026 | 657 | 556 | 0.85 |
| May 2026 | 848 | 708 | 0.83 |
| March 2026 | 861 | 691 | 0.80 |
| April 2026 | 958 | 738 | 0.77 |
| August 2026 | 777 | 595 | 0.77 |
| June 2026 | 875 | 646 | 0.74 |
| July 2026 | 845 | 600 | 0.71 |
| September 2026 | 752 | 515 | 0.68 |
November and December sit at the top. September sits at the bottom.
Why the two quietest months win
In December 2025, 420 homes came on the market in Knoxville. That is the lowest month of the entire year by a wide margin. And 392 homes went under contract.
Essentially one home went under contract for every new one that showed up.
Now look at April. There were 958 new listings, the busiest month on the board, and 738 went under contract. More buyers, absolutely. But you were standing in a much longer line.
That is the whole thing. Buyers thin out in the winter. Sellers thin out more.
What this does not mean
I am not going to oversell this, because the honest version is more useful to you.
A good ratio does not mean December is the easy button. Fewer buyers are out, so if your house is wrong for the market, it will sit in a quiet month the same way it would sit in a loud one. Winter buyers are patient about price and impatient about condition.
Median sale prices also soften in late fall and winter. Our median single family sale price was $385,750 last November and $379,999 in December, against $400,000 this past September. Some of that is which homes happen to sell in which month rather than every house losing value, but it is real and you should price knowing it.
So the fair summary is this. November and December give you the least competition of any month of the year, and they ask you to be sharper about price and condition in exchange.
Where the market sits right now
As of the third week of October 2026, Knoxville has about 1,885 single family homes active on the market. That is the highest active count in the past twelve months.
September, the last full month on the books, brought 752 new listings, 515 homes under contract, and an average of 46.2 days on market. The median sale price was $400,000.
So right now you are looking at peak competition. In six weeks, if the pattern holds, roughly 400 fewer homes a month will be coming on to compete with you.
What I would do with this
If you are already thinking about selling and you have been telling yourself you missed the fall window, you did not miss anything. You are sitting right in front of the best stretch of the year on this particular measure.
Two things matter if you go.
Photos. Fall color is nearly done. Once the trees are bare your exterior shots go flat until April, so if there is any color left on your street, that is this week’s job.
Price. In a thin month the market does not carry a stretch price along with the traffic. Your first two weeks are the whole negotiation.
Common questions
What is the best month to sell a house in Knoxville?
Measured by how much competition you face, November and December. In both months, roughly one home went under contract for every new listing that came on the market, the best ratio of any month in the past year. Spring brings more buyers but considerably more competing sellers.
Is it a bad idea to list during the holidays?
Fewer people are looking, but a much higher share of them are serious. The data says new listings hit their yearly low in December while homes still went under contract at nearly the same rate. You trade volume of traffic for quality of traffic.
Should I wait until spring instead?
Spring gives you more buyers and a lot more competing listings. In April, Knoxville saw 958 new listings in one month. If your home shows well and is priced correctly, spring is fine. If it needs to stand out, a quiet month does more of that work for you.
Let’s look at your street, not the whole city
Every number here is citywide, and citywide is a blunt instrument. Your ZIP, your price point, and your condition move all of it. A home in the 400s in Farragut behaves nothing like a lakeside property in Northshore and Choto, and my area guides break that down by ZIP.
If you want to know what your specific house would face in November, text or call me at 865-257-4680 and I will pull the real numbers for your pocket of town. I would rather tell you honestly that waiting is smarter for you than talk you into a listing that was never going to work.
You can also start with the instant home value estimate, read the fall seller breakdown, or set up a selling consultation whenever you are ready.
Market figures are for single family homes in the city of Knoxville, from East Tennessee Realtors MLS data covering November 2025 through September 2026, with October 2026 active inventory as of the third week of the month. October 2026 is a partial month and is not included in the ranking. Market conditions change, and your home’s results will depend on its own price point, condition, and location.
Lily Dailey, REALTOR®, ABR, MRP. Dailey Dream Homes with Greater Impact Realty. TN License # 379779. Greater Impact Realty, 420 Bearden Road, Knoxville TN 37919, Firm # 264130. Equal Housing Opportunity. Dailey Dream Homes is the personal marketing brand of Lily Dailey, a licensed real estate agent affiliated with Greater Impact Realty, and is not an independent brokerage.
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