While spring and summer are the usual seasons to shop for a new home, waiting until winter might pay off for some of the nation’s hottest housing markets.

Trulia looked into whether or not seasonality plays a role in how fast markets move by calculating how long homes stay on the market in the summer versus the winter.

After crunching the numbers, Trulia found that five of the fastest moving markets this summer also top the list of metros with the largest winter-to-summer change in the share of homes still on the market after two months.

The biggest shocker of all: San Francisco topped the list as the best city to buy a home in during the winter. (But then, it was Mark Twain who once said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”)

This is welcomed news given that the city is the fastest moving market in the country.

According to Trulia, in San Francisco and Oakland, California, the pace of sales increased by 19% and 17% (proportion increase, not percentage points) between winter and summer over the past three years.

This doesn’t mean that there will be no competition in the winter, but for those homebuyers who couldn’t lock in a home in the summer, maybe try again this winter.

Here is the list of the top 10 markets for winter house hunting. 

Click to enlarge

(Source: Trulia)