To ask why there is often a sudden "rash" of houses up for sale in a certain area?

[user1477282676]

We're renting in a nice village (Australia) and over the past 8 months, it seems that For Sale signs are popping up like daffodils in Spring. Why does this happen?

First our next door neighbour, then the house opposite...then our own landlord...then all down the main street there's sign after sign...and on all the roads leading off the main street.

Is it just "catching" or is something else afoot?

Sometimes house 1 goes up on the market, the neighbours see it is worth more than they've realised and want to cash in

Other times, there is a problem in the area people want to get away from

Or there would be a local swinging group which has gone wrong and broken up lots of marriages and they are all getting divorced
(Last one is a guess)

Coukd be first option suggested - people suddenly realise what their houses are worth

Or in the alternative it happens a lot as murmurs of a possible "undesirable" development near by leak out ...

When it happened in our street it was 25 years since the newer houses in the street were built. A lot of them had the original owners and you could see when their mortgages finished - new windows went in, or some work to the roof and then a for sale sign. For many of them their children had left home so they sold the family home and moved to somewhere smaller (lots of 4/5 bedroom houses) or a bit further out of town now that school/library/sports centre on the doorstep wasn't as necessary as they felt before.