May 11, 2015
Spring has finally arrived – and it’s a great time to place your house on the market. Consider these seven key reasons that this season is optimal to sell your home.
Don’t forget that spring is tax-refund time, and many would-be home purchasers have money in the bank in the spring that they might not have at other times of year – making them not only more apt to buy, but more apt to meet asking price.
There’s something about the feeling of rebirth in spring, when nature seems to be reawakening, and a sense of newness and change pervades everything, including would-be home buyers thinking about moving. Perhaps that’s why, statistically, it’s frequently been documented that there are more active house-hunters on the prowl in April, May, and June than other months.
One definitive reason why spring is an optimum time to put your house on the market is that the majority of people who move – about two-thirds, by some accounts – do so in the summer. The obvious explanation: kids are out of school, and families can relocate with minimum disruption in schooling. Children can finish out the old year, then start the new academic year fresh in the fall in their new neighborhood. For these families, a spring purchase is ideal, especially with built-in time for mortgage approval and closing.
Winter, with its ice, snow, slush, and frigid temperatures, is a terrible time to house-hunt, and buyers know it, and stay away in droves. Except in southern climates, front walks and stairs of houses are treacherous and wet, and a turn-off to buyers, who stay close to home. As a result, by the time spring comes around would-be buyers are chomping at the bit to start looking!
In autumn, people are trying to figure out their entertaining and travel schedules around Thanksgiving. In winter, Christmas and New Year’s take center-stage, and real estate definitely takes a back seat in most families. And summer’s all about family vacations, particularly August. That leaves spring. Holiday-wise, for most folks it’s clear sailing.
If a buyer plans to do substantial renovation or redecorating after he or she purchases your house, a long stretch of good weather that follows a spring purchase -- before the rains come or the snow flies -- is a huge advantage.
Let’s face it, your home most likely looks better in the spring than it does in the wilting heat of summer or the gray depths of February, or on a bleak November day. (A long, curving front walk or driveway that looks inviting in spring will – in winter – only make buyers think of shoveling snow!) Spring means budding trees, newly-grown-in grass, cheerful early-season perennials bursting into bloom, and sunny but not hot days. Of course you can stage a home to be appealing year-round – but the welcoming warmth of spring is a wonderful time to show off your home’s best features.
It goes without saying that the right home, priced correctly and marketed intelligently, will sell at any time of year. But if you have your choice as to which season to list your house for sale, for all these reasons and others, choose spring!
