What Season Is Best To Sell?

So you are ready to sell your house, but you look out the window and see several feet of snow on the ground. Should you bother putting your house on the market in the winter, or should you wait until spring? Is there a better season in which to sell your home? The answers to these questions depend on a few basic factors.

Where You Live

In a place where the climate is very cold in the winter, it can be wise to wait until spring to sell, because fewer buyers will be venturing out to look at homes. In an area where the sun shines year round, weather is not a concern, and people will have no trouble coming out to see your house. This doesn’t mean, however, that season doesn’t matter in a warm climate! It can still affect how many potential buyers will come out and the odds of selling.

Watch Out For The Holiday Slump

People are usually too busy from Thanksgiving through Christmas to spend much time house hunting, and in January they are often recovering financially from holiday over-spending. Most experts will recommend that you avoid listing your home until after the worst of the holiday slump in the market is over and people are looking to buy again. This is true no matter what the climate!

Particulars Of Your Home

If your home is near a high school, you might want to consider selling in the summer when things nearby are a bit quieter. The noise and traffic of the school year might put some buyers off. If your home is near a lot of fun winter activities, this might actually be a selling point that will be highlighted better in the winter months. Looking for these details of your area and capitalizing on them will help you to get your home sold.

The season does matter when it comes to home buying, and spring is usually a good time to list. Your REALTOR® can help you to determine what season makes the most sense for listing in your particular case, providing you with market information in your area and helping you pinpoint the particulars of your home that make it appealing in a specific season. 

Have more tips? As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Be well,

Rhonda

PS. Thinking of buying a home or selling yours? I'd love to sit down and talk with you about the process and the market. You can reach me anytime at 401-326-2928. 

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Splash on the Color!

You are getting ready to paint the interior of our home this winter. Hours have been spent hours pining over colors, trying to figure out the perfect palette.

Now, let's throw a little twist in the scenario and say, you are putting your home on the market. Should you stick with white? While white might be safe as to not offend anyone.  White absolutely has its place in the world of paint colors, and nowadays there are endless choices of "white". However, instead of playing it too safe, consider the beautiful world of neutrals.  Adding a touch of richness to the walls can make a big difference, and uplift a room's energy.

On a personal note, a couple of years ago, when we put our home on the market, I looked around at our walls. While the main living area was a beautiful khaki color, we had a brick red dining room, dark moss green bathroom and a burgundy office.  And that was just the first floor!  I loved the feeling each of the colors invoked, to me it made the house warm and inviting.  After giving it serious thought about whether to tone down some of the rooms, we decided to keep the colors we loved. Through all the feedback we received by potential buyers and agents, only one person mentioned the wall colors, and it was the actually the agent, not the buyer. When showing properties, I always remind clients that it's only paint and can be easily changed!

So let's get back to the fun part, and choose some colors for those walls! When choosing colors, the big question is "How do you want the room to feel?" Warm and cozy? Cool and airy? "Downtown Chic" or "Provençal Farmhouse" Do you want to feel like you are sitting the beach? In a meadow? There is an abundance of web sites, books and online tools to help you choose.  Check out Sherwin Williams color visualizer where you can upload photos of your rooms play with various color schemes. Also, check out HGTV's Color Guide full of painting tips, tricks and ideas.

What's your favorite color? Would love to hear your additional thoughts.

Best,
Rhonda

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