I’m discussing why selling your home in the winter can be a great idea, and waiting for the spring market may not be in your best interest.

Many people think that the real estate market is dead in the wintertime. The spring and summer months are notoriously busier so people naturally think those are better times to sell their homes. In reality, that's a misconception about how the market truly works.

It has been statistically shown that some properties will sell for a higher price per square foot in January and February. There’s a definitive reason for that: The people who are shopping for homes during the winter are very motivated. These are people who need to move here, they have a particular reason why they’re coming. They may have been transferred or have sold their house already—they are not messing around. These are focused buyers who may pay full market value for properties. For those who may want to get a jump on all the other people considering selling in the springtime market, this is a great opportunity to grab a serious buyer before you’re competing with many other sellers.

I don’t believe there’s a bad month to sell your home. However, there are better days than others. If you put a house on the market either on a Monday or a Friday, it can get lost in the shuffle. On Mondays, people are still coming off the weekend. They haven’t recovered from their weekend of showings yet. By Friday, they’ve already made their choices of which properties to see over the coming weekend. I find, more than choosing which month to sell, you’ll have more success with deciding which day to sell. Days in the middle of the week, Tuesday through Thursday, are the ideal days to put your home on the market.

"It has been statistically shown that some properties will sell for a higher price per square foot in January and February."

I also want to share that if you are considering putting your house on the market this year, the price will be crucial. You want to make sure that you price your property competitively and correctly. You are still competing with a large number of homes. You can ask and get top dollar, but it’s not an aspirational pricing market right now.

You want to make sure you get a great comparative market analysis on your house and position it so that you are the obvious choice in the market. Roughly 50% of listings are still going unsold. We’re extremely proud of the fact that at Vantage West, our expiration rate is only about 10%. We have a 90% chance of selling your property. The reason we’re so successful is that we consult you on the correct listing price and get your home in excellent shape before taking it to the market.

If you’re considering selling your house in 2020, the best thing we can do is come over and consult you on how to prepare your home for listing, how to increase your sale price as much as we can, and then exactly how to position it in the market. If you’re interested in knowing what your house might sell for, a great place to start is our home evaluation tool on our website. If you want to look around and see what kind of properties are out there to move into, there’s also a home search on our site.

If you have further questions about how to sell your home in the winter or real estate in general, please feel free to reach out to us by phone or email. We would love to help you.