By Hazel Bridges from AgingWellness.org
7 Ways to Sell Your Home in the “Off-Season”
You shouldn’t shy away from selling your home because of seasonal selling concerns. It may be considered the “off-season,” but it can actually be the best time to sell your home! You may be surprised how much your home is worth and how many eager buyers there are in the off-season. If you’re considering a sale during the off-season, Petaluma real estate experts Peg and Jeremy King invite you to read on!
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There Are Perks to Selling Your Home in the Off-Season
It’s the off-season, and you should take advantage of it! When it’s the off-season, busy contractors aren’t as busy anymore, as mentioned by Family Handyman. More home improvement professionals are available to help you, and you may be able to negotiate their rates down due to the lack of demand for their services.
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Make Your Home Look Its Best
While getting a discount from contractors isn’t a sure thing, what’s guaranteed to give you an off-season discount is stores. The cost of your renovation materials may be less, and you can also find deals on new appliances. Now is the time to get your house cleaned, remodeled, and upgraded as needed. While you’re at it, you may also want to consider upgrading your walls with some neutral tone paint or wallpaper.
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Minimalize Your Home’s Style
Your home should be as neutral as possible so that your buyers can envision their lives between your walls. It’s important to take away the vast majority of your personal style. Family photos, a wall full of awards and trophies, and full bookshelves should be eliminated. Quicken Loans recommends tossing everything smaller than a football in a box to free up space and make the home feel more open.
Now it’s time to take advantage of the seasons. Since you made the effort of making your walls neutral, you can go for a clean, minimalist design, by using accent pieces to represent the season. For Fall, use warm colors. Gold, dark green, dark red, and burnt orange are some examples of warm fall colors to accent your home with. In Winter, switch out your fall accents with some minimal holiday accents.
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Light Up Your Home
It will often be dark out when buyers are viewing your home, it’s in your best interest to shine a literal light on your home both inside and out. Lights illuminating the front door or along the path to the porch create a positive first impression as daylight dims. Strategically placed mirrors can also increase indoor light and make the home feel larger and more spacious.
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Become A Real Estate Market Expert (Or Utilize Someone Who Is!)
Now that your home can be shown in the best possible light, it’s time to consider the business side of selling your property. One of the biggest mistakes first-time sellers make is pricing their home incorrectly. Sometimes, sellers become sentimentally attached to their home and think their fond memories will pay out in dollars. Other times, house-hopping hopefuls jump the gun and price their home too low. Either of these situations can result in a stagnant selling process. If you want to sell your house, you have to know the market. And your real estate agent can help by sharing comparable listings.
By knowing what comparable homes have recently sold for, you put yourself in a better position to price your dwelling competitively. You can compare features and either increase or reduce your overall price based on what your home has to offer.
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Maximize Your Home’s Marketing
Ultimately, your real estate agent will handle the marketing and promotion of your home, and in addition to having a listing on their website, you’ll also end up on a variety of listing sites like Trulia and Zillow.
While you’ll need to discuss it with your agent first, you can supplement their efforts by sharing your listing through social media platforms. In addition to posting photos of your home through your Instagram or Facebook accounts, you can accentuate your posts with design elements like a banner or logo. A free custom logo maker, for example, enables you to use a variety of design features to produce an eye-catching logo that lures in buyers.
Of course, a good real estate team like Peg and Jeremy King can do the marketing heavy lifting and provide you with the assets you can share around!
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Adjust the Price of Your Home to Meet the Market
There’s no reason to underprice your house just for a quick sale. However, if it sits on the market for more than a few weeks without so much as a nibble, it might make sense to lower the price. This is especially true if an adjustment knocks your home into another buying range. Value range pricing is another way to price your home to appeal to more buyers. In this model, your home may be listed for $709,000, but will show up in results when buyers search for a property that tops out at $700,000 or when their search starts at $710,000. Ultimately, your real estate agent will be able to help you determine the right price if you need to adjust.
Selling Your Home in the Off-Season is a Breeze with the King Team!
With all these tips, you should know all there is to selling your home in the off-season. There will always be buyers, and soon they will be knocking on YOUR door.
Are you ready to list your Sonoma County home? Then connect with agents Peg and Jeremy King. We offer our clients an unparalleled experience throughout the selling process. Reach out to us today to get started! 707.338.8821