Ahhhh…the Holidays! With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it’s that wonderful time of the year again! A time to gather with family and friends, and see folks you may only get to see once or twice a year. And where does everyone gather? At home! It seems that more than ever at the Holidays, people’s homes are at the center of all the hubbub. More entertaining happens at this time, and as you prepare that holiday meal in an older, smaller kitchen, or try to squeeze 3 extra chairs into a cramped dining room, you may start to think….it’s time to move!
This may be why early January can be one of the best times of the year to list your house. It’s a new year, with new goals and fresh starts. Buyers start to look as soon as the Holidays are past, but yet many sellers have just started to think about the process and may be months away from actually putting their home on the market. There tends to be little inventory, but yet lots of buyers….what better time to beat the rush of sellers and showcase your home to these eager house hunters!
But wait….what about the snow? The cold? The bare yards!? I can’t sell my house in January in New England! Well, if you think about it, our yards are bare for a good five long months of the year. It doesn’t make sense to miss that entire selling season. And with modern technology there are many ways to showcase those beautiful yards and landscapes. We have been using digital picture frames, with a slide show of the yard and area through the different seasons. A narrative describing the outdoor activities enjoyed by the sellers can help as well. It’s all about the buyers picturing the “experience” of living in the house, no matter what the season.
So if you are finding that the extra large turkey just won’t fit in your extra small wall oven this year, it may be time to move up! Get a (turkey) leg up on your competition for 2010 and call your Realtor NOW. They will help you to formulate a comprehensive plan to get the house on the market in the New Year- and will give you plenty of tips to make sure your house and yard are featured in the very best possible light. Gobble gobble!!
I liked the segway of Thanksgiving to get homeowners to start thinking of a move. “Spring market” gets pushed by us Realtors to be sooner and sooner, but I believe it is more of a flexible timeline based upon when the sellers come out of the woodwork. We are facing very low inventory in the Metrowest Boston region, and I feel that will result in prices being pressured up come spring. Entertaining post.