6 Tips for Selling Your Home During the Holidays
Believe it or not, the holiday season can be a great time to sell your home. You may think that spring is the ultimate season to sell your home due to more houses being listed and more people seem eager to buy. It’s true that the housing market typically heats up during the spring, however, the holiday season is often overlooked as a prime time to sell.
Why? First of all, there is typically less inventory on the market, allowing your home to easily stand out among the available inventory. And the buyers that are looking are far more serious about finding a home within a specific time-frame.
1) STAGE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. THINK CLEAN, COZY, SIMPLE.
Yes, you should absolutely decorate your home during the holidays, even if you are trying to sell it. The real question you should be asking is, how much decorating?
We tend to accumulate a lot of stuff. This is especially true of holiday decorations. When you pull out holiday decor this year, think like a stager or a designer. You don’t want to use every decoration or ornament you’ve ever owned. This year, use your best decorations as holiday accents in each room without drawing attention away from your home’s best-selling features.
Your home may have large windows with a great view or maybe your home has a dream kitchen. Whatever sold you on your home when you first bought it is most likely the same feature(s) that will sell your house this holiday season. So, don’t cover up your view with an excessively large Christmas tree or fill a room with an abnormally large nativity scene. You want to accentuate your home’s best features with holiday decor, not bury them.
2) PRICE YOUR HOME TO SELL
I will help you come up with a pricing strategy together based on comparable homes in the area, what the current housing market is doing, and what the demand for housing looks like or is projected to do. Ultimately, several variables go into pricing a home to sell, however, there are a couple of easy tricks that can help attract homebuyers.
If your home looks like all the other homes on the block with similar features, then a lower price point will definitely draw in more traffic than your rivals. However, if your home is the largest one on the block, has more acreage, or a triple-car garage, you can price your home based on the increased value it provides.
3) MAKE YOUR CURB APPEAL A TOP PRIORITY
Your neighborhood may actually look more appealing to homebuyers during the holiday season. Maybe you live on one of those streets where everyone drives down your lane to see houses lit up in all colors of holiday splendor. You don’t want to go overboard with your exterior holiday decorations, but you want to make your house shine along with the other homes on your block.
Furthermore, your lawn will not be that lush green it usually is during the summertime, and your trees may currently be barren. That’s why making your curb appeal a top priority is necessary when selling your home in winter. Make sure all the sticks, dead leaves, and any other debris are picked up and your lawn is neatly trimmed.
4) KEEPING YOUR PROPERTY SAFE FOR HOMEBUYERS
Driveways and walking paths may be blanketed in snow and ice and icicles may hang from gutters like glass curtains. A legitimate concern for home sellers is how to keep your property safe for homebuyers. The only thing you can really do is be proactive and break out that snow shovel and start clearing a path.
5) TURN ON THE (HOLIDAY) LIGHTS
To complement the coziness of your home, you’ll also want to make it bright. Turn on all the lights in your house during open houses and home tours. It may be the darkest time of year outside but you can make sure it doesn’t feel that way inside your home.
This is also a great time to replace burnt out light bulbs and fix light switches that are not working. You may also want to consider making all your interior lighting the same color temperature, such as a soft white which brightens rooms without giving you that institutional feel. This will help with consistent lighting throughout your home, creating a balanced feel as potential buyers walk through each room.
6) SLAY THE HOLIDAY SEASON WITH PROFESSIONAL REAL ESTATE PHOTOS
The absolute biggest thing we can do for your house in terms of marketing is getting professional real estate photos taken. However, this is the one time you don’t want to have your holiday decor on display. In fact, getting your professional photos taken of your house before you decorate is a must because holiday decorations essentially create a time-stamp of your home.
If your home doesn’t sell during the holidays you don’t want your house to still be rocking holiday lights in its listing photos come February or March, or you risk turning off potential homebuyers. So, either plan on getting your listing photos taken as soon as you can so you can decorate for the holidays or having them done a second time after the new year.
Contact Denise Martin to get your Utah home on the market this holiday season. SoldByDenise.com
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