Pros and Cons to Listing Your Home For Sale This Winter
You might think that selling your home during the spring and summer may be the best time! While it may be a good time to sell there are benefits to selling during the holidays and winter months too. Especially while we are still experiencing a sellers market at that. Below are some pros & cons to listing your home this winter.
Pros and Cons to Listing your home for sale this winter!
Pros:
Less competition
During the wintertime, there are typically less houses for sale than the warmer spring and summer months. This narrows the home options for buyers, making it more likely that a buyer would seriously consider purchasing your home. After all, there’s less competition from other currently listed homes, and a more limited pool to choose from. When there are less homes for sale in your area, it also becomes easier to make your home stand out from the competition.
Motovated Buyers
Rarely do buyers go house hunting during the winter just for fun, It’s cold outside! Even though there may be smaller pool of buyers during the winter, you can bet that the buyers who are around are much more motivated. Often times they are relocating for work purposes, to be closer to family or perhaps they desperately need a larger home, whatever the reason – winter buyers tend to be more serious. This is good news for sellers who are looking to sell their home quickly.
More time off = more time for buying
You might think that being the busiest time of the year that people would be too busy to stop by and look at your house. But people tend to take more time off work around the holidays – leaving more time to search for their new home. Three-day weekends in January are also popular weekends for open houses and showings.
Online house hunting is year-round
The internet has no seasons! Most people would rather be cozied up on the couch in the winter, so it’s more important than ever to make sure your home has a good online presence. Most buyers will start their search online before in person. In fact, 93% of people use the internet in their home search, according to NAR.
Cons:
Lack of curb appeal
Weather is the biggest drawback of winter home selling. While a fresh layer of snow can sound romantic, it’s harder to create curb appeal once that snow turns to a black slush. On top of burying any landscaping appeal under snow, cold, ice, and a lack of light from shorter days can hurt curb appeal. One way to combat these problems is to focus on an aspect of the home that isn’t bothered by winter weather. For example, instead of showing off how long a driveway is (and how much shoveling or snow blowing it’ll need), you might focus on the roominess of the garage for keeping the elements off a potential buyer’s car.
Less Time For Showings
After the fall daylight saving time change, Long Island starts getting dark around 4:30 p.m. This challenge makes it much more challenging to view homes in the evening, as most homebuyers like to view the whole home inside and out with daylight present. The lack of daylight can quickly put a squeeze on your showing schedule in the winter. On top of lack of daylight is the lack of time with the holidays that also take up a lot of personal time and limit availability for showings.
Fewer offers for less
Buyers may think winter home sellers are desperate to offload homes, so be prepared to field lower offers than you might during other times of the year. In the busy spring and summer season, sellers often find themselves in multiple-offer situations, where they’re able to pit multiple buyers against each other to increase the final selling price. This is less likely to happen in a slower selling season.
Selling your home on Long Island
Want to jump on the winter listing train with me and get your home sold?? Get in touch with Jessica Sullivan Real Estate today. I’ll help you get your home sold and you can still get to enjoy the holidays!
