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There is no dead month in Lisbon residential property. Across three complete years, from 2023 to 2025, JPVA Real Estate Group closed deeds in every single month of the calendar. August and December, the two months most owners avoid, accounted for the share any two months would be expected to hold. The first nine months of 2026 confirm the pattern. What changes through the year is not the supply of buyers. It is the number of homes competing for their attention.
For owners who live outside Portugal, that distinction matters more than it does for anyone else, because the cost of waiting is paid in months of remote holding costs rather than in a change of address. If you’re weighing when to sell, the data below is built to answer exactly that question.
What the data covers
The figures below come from JPVA Real Estate Group’s own transaction records for the complete years of 2023, 2024 and 2025: 703 listings taken, 104 promissory contracts of purchase and sale signed, and 167 deeds completed. The first nine months of 2026 add a further 26 promissory contracts and 47 deeds, used here only to check whether the pattern still holds.
This is one team’s book of business in Lisbon and its metropolitan area, not national market statistics. Its value lies in what a sample of this size reveals about how buyers and sellers actually behave through the year.
Three separate moments are tracked, because each answers a different question. The listing date shows when owners decide to sell. The promissory contract shows when a buyer genuinely commits, usually with a deposit. The deed shows when the transaction completes.
Is there a dead month in the Lisbon market?
No. Across thirty six consecutive months, not one passed without a completed deed.
August and December combined accounted for 16.2% of transactions in 2023, 17.0% in 2024 and 16.7% in 2025. Two months out of twelve would be expected to hold 16.7%. Three independent years, with very different annual volumes, produced almost identical results.
What does change in those months is competition. Many owners withdraw listings or postpone going to market over the summer and at year end, which leaves the properties that stay available with a materially smaller field.
When do buyers actually commit?
September is the single strongest month for promissory contracts: 13.5% of all contracts signed across the three years, against the 8.3% an average month would represent. September and October together concentrated 23.1% of the year’s buying decisions.
For international buyers, the mechanism is easy to trace. Many visit Lisbon over the summer, see properties in person, and return home to decide. The commitment lands in September, which means the property has to be visible, properly presented and correctly priced in July and August for it to be on that shortlist at all.
Why do deeds cluster in November?
November is the busiest month of the year for completions, at 13.8% of all deeds, against 6.0% in January. The gap between the September peak in promissory contracts and the November peak in deeds is roughly two months, which matches the normal interval for a purchase involving Portuguese mortgage approval.
Read backwards, the implication is direct: a deal completing in November was being prepared in August. An owner listing in late September is arriving after the year’s most decisive buyers have already chosen.
How many homes come to market each month?
This is the most useful figure for any owner weighing up timing.
| Month | New listings | Promissory contracts | Deeds |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 10.8% | 2.9% | 6.0% |
| February | 9.4% | 6.7% | 5.4% |
| March | 7.4% | 9.6% | 6.6% |
| April | 6.4% | 10.6% | 7.2% |
| May | 12.1% | 9.6% | 9.6% |
| June | 13.5% | 8.7% | 9.6% |
| July | 12.4% | 10.6% | 10.2% |
| August | 5.5% | 5.8% | 6.0% |
| September | 7.4% | 13.5% | 8.4% |
| October | 6.8% | 9.6% | 9.0% |
| November | 3.1% | 6.7% | 13.8% |
| December | 5.1% | 5.8% | 8.4% |
New supply concentrates in spring and early summer: May, June and July together account for 38% of all listings taken in a year. January is the fourth busiest month, at 10.8%. At the other extreme, November brings just 3.1% of the year’s new listings, the lowest of all twelve months.
Put the two readings together and autumn in Lisbon offers the least competitive combination of the year: demand above average, new supply at its annual low. In November, fewer than a quarter as many homes come to market as in June, while more than twice as many deeds complete as in January.
Is 2026 behaving differently?
No. Over the first nine months of 2026, JPVA completed 47 deeds against an average of 38 in the same period of the three preceding years, and signed 26 promissory contracts, effectively matching the historic average for the same window. Business closed in every month of the year so far, August included, which was in fact one of the strongest months of the year for completions.
So is it worth waiting until January?
The data says no, for two reasons.
January is not a buyers’ month. It records the lowest share of promissory contracts of the entire year, at 2.9%. What rises in January is supply, not demand.
The second reason is the cost of time, and it falls harder on owners who are not in the country. Preparing a property properly takes weeks. Finding the right buyer takes weeks to months. Completion takes a further two to three months after the promissory contract. Postponing from September to January does not delay the sale by four months. It pushes completion into late spring, with condominium charges, municipal property tax, insurance, maintenance and any outstanding mortgage running throughout, plus the practical difficulty of coordinating viewings and works on an empty property from abroad.
When does waiting genuinely make sense?
There are real cases where postponing is the right call, and they deserve naming.
When renovation work is under way, showing a property mid project costs more in price than it saves in time. When paperwork is incomplete, the property should reach the market after the file is closed, not before: for a non resident owner this typically means the Portuguese tax number, the land registry certificate, the tax record, the habitation licence, the energy certificate and, where the sale will be handled remotely, a power of attorney granted to a representative in Portugal. When an inheritance is unsettled or a divorce is pending, the sale depends on decisions outside the owner’s control. And when the timing of the sale carries material tax consequences, particularly around capital gains and reinvestment deadlines in the owner’s country of residence as well as in Portugal, the tax position should be established first, with a qualified adviser.
Outside these cases, the calendar is not the argument. Preparation is.
Methodology and limitations
The figures relate exclusively to JPVA Real Estate Group’s own activity, in properties located mainly in Lisbon and its metropolitan area.
The monthly distribution shown in the table uses the complete calendar years of 2023, 2024 and 2025. The 2026 figures cover the first nine months of the year. They are used as verification only and do not feed the percentages, since the year is incomplete. Listings taken in 2026 are excluded from the seasonal reading because they include block entries of new developments, which distort monthly distribution.
Percentages describe how each indicator is distributed across the months of the year. They are not price movements or market volume figures. Data compiled on 16 September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
When is the best time of year to sell a property in Lisbon?
There is no clearly superior month. In JPVA’s data, September concentrates the most buying decisions and November the most completions, but every month of the year produced closed transactions. Preparation and pricing weigh far more heavily on the outcome than the month of listing.
Does the Lisbon market stop in August?
No. August and December combined represented between 16% and 17% of annual transactions in each of the three years analysed, which is the expected weight of two months in a year. In 2026, August was one of the strongest months for completions.
Can a property in Lisbon be sold without the owner being in Portugal?
Yes. Remote sales are routine, and they require a Portuguese tax number and, in most cases, a power of attorney granted to a representative who can sign at completion. Both should be arranged before the property goes to market rather than during the sale.
How long does it take between the promissory contract and the deed?
In the transactions analysed, roughly two months, which is consistent with a purchase involving mortgage approval. Cash purchases can complete considerably faster.
Written by João Passos, founder and lead agent of JPVA Real Estate Group, with over 17 years in the Lisbon residential market. Member of the National Association of Realtors, holding the ABR, CIPS and CRS designations, and named a Top 10 Agent by Forbes Portugal.
