Many clients ask if they should wait till April (or so) to put their home on the market. Actually, my advice is quite different. No matter what market you are in, the Fall and Spring months are one of the BEST times to be on the market.
Real Estate is everything they taught us in High School Economics....it is "supply" and "demand". The reason people think they should wait is because they heard a lot of homes sell in the summer. Well, that is true. In fact, 50% of home sales in the US sell in the summer months. However, during the summer months there is more competition for those buyers.
What I suggest is to get your home on the market right away. Jan-Mar will be the months you will have the leasst amount of competition for the rest of the year. Many sellers sign 6 month contracts when they list their home. If they list in June and expire around Thanksgiving...the majority of sellers go ahead and take their home off the market. Those are the months that you have the least amount of sellers trying to take YOUR buyer.
Another way to look at it is this, in the summer there are a lot more buyers....but also a lot more homes for sale. In the beginning of the year there are fewer buyers....but they are typically more serious buyers (especially if there is snow and bad weather). Those buyers HAVE to move. So, even though you may get fewer lookers, the lookers out in the weather ar serious buyers. In fact, those serious buyers have fewer homes to chose from, so I would argue that sellers typically get a little more equity during the first months of the year.
If you would like further explanation on this, feel free to contact us at brad@kornteam.com
