To Sell or Not to Sell

A question that gets asked of me quite often is “when is the best time of year to sell?”. Traditionally, it is thought that the spring and summer months are the best due to the shear volume of buyers. But, before you make a decision, consider these facts.

That while it is true that the market is more active in those months, there are also more homes for prospective buyers to look at in an already saturated market (1,076 in June of 2007 as compared to 770 in December of 2007). What this means to you as the seller, is there is more competition in the market meaning that if the prospective buyer does not find your home as the most attractive in it’s price range, you lose. Along those same lines, your price must also be very competitive or they will move on to the next deal until they find someone desperate enough to take their offer. With buyers becoming more informed and the not always accurate news regarding the decline in the housing market, it is more a rarity than common place for someone to absolutely fall in love with a home and pay whatever it takes to have it.

Quality of buyers is another important issue. As I mentioned earlier, there are in fact more prospective buyers in the spring and summer months. Along with the serious buyers you will also find more tire kickers who are just looking around or need something to help pass the time on a nice weekend. With that in mind, consider that the winter month buyers are typically more serious about purchasing and less about getting out in foul weather to casually look at houses. I love to get calls on cold rainy days because I know these people must be serious about buying or they would not be outside. Even though sales are down somewhat in the winter months as compared to the spring and summer, they are not down that drastically (170 sales in that same June of 2007 as compared to 113 in November of 2007).

With these two very key factors in mind, you may want to re-think the prior notion that spring time is the best time to sell.