Should You Sell Your Capital District Home this Winter?

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During this time of year, sellers often ask, “Should I put my home on the market during the winter, or should I want until spring?” Let’s review some advantages and disadvantages of selling during the winter months.

One advantage to selling your home in winter, is supply and demand. Many sellers fear their home won’t sell and end up taking it off the market. These particular sellers rely on the common misconception that homes do not sell during the wintertime. When inventory is low, you have less competition, resulting in a higher demand and an increased sales price for your property. 

There aren’t any disadvantages to selling in the winter, if you’re a motivated buyer. 

If you decide to wait until spring to sell your home, you face certain disadvantages, such as exposure. Your home will not be shown to the motivated buyers who are looking for homes in the winter. Some of those buyers have recently transferred jobs and have a deadline to purchase a home by January 1st. Those buyers will not see your property if you wait until spring.

If you wait to sell your home, there could be another 15 or 20 homes out there for sale. When inventory increases in the spring, demand for your home decreases and so does the sales price.

If you're still not convinced, a recent study was released called “Cold Weather Equals Hotter Sales”. This study found that houses listed in winter are more likely to sell in six months or less than houses listed in the spring.

As you can see, now is a great time to sell your home. If you have any questions, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

The Capital District Market Today

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As we close with a strong year, we’re hoping to start boldly in 2016. We’ve had a phenomenal year. As a single company, we’ve done twenty million in business so far. We presume we’ve seen such great success from the customer satisfaction we provide. Consumer confidence is up, the unemployment rate is as at its lowest since 1973, and the stock market is going back.

• Inventory decreased by 11.5% this year. The positive takeaway is the fact that prices increased by 3.8%. Last year, the average sales price was $186,000. Comparatively, this year, it is $193,000. This is an excellent improvement especially from the decreased inventory our market experiences. Thus, homes are selling quicker for sellers and the interest rates are low for buyers.

• We maintain a 93.2% list to sales ratio. That’s a good, healthy number to admire. For every home sold, we expect to receive at least 93.2% of the listing price when the property closes. If you’re a seller, don’t remove your home during the holidays. Homes sell during the entire year, and fortunately, we’ve experienced more sales this year during the fourth quarter compared to the past.

• Interest rates are down. The Federal Reserve had two opportunities to increase rates at the end of the third into the fourth quarter, but they didn’t. Furthermore, the rumors say the Fed will increase rates this year into next year. Now is the time to buy if you’ve been thinking about it. Take advantage of the low rates while they last!

If you have any questions about buying or selling a home, reach out to us. Give us a call or email today. We’d be happy to sit down with you!

How Do You Prepare Your Capital District Home for Sale?

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There are many ways that you can prepare yourself for a home sale. However, I'd like to speak about four specific things that you should be doing right now if you want to sell your home this fall.

1. Declutter: I walk into listing appointments all the time and the homes look disorganized and cluttered. This not only makes the home feel smaller, it also makes the buyer think that the home is not well taken care of. Less is more when you're cleaning your home before a sale.

2. Curb appeal: You need to draw buyers into your home, and you have to improve your exterior look to do that. Trim your hedges, cut your bushes, do whatever it takes to make your home look organized and inviting from the outside. Buyers will want to look inside if they enjoy the outside.

3. Keeping the home clean: This sounds really simple, but I cannot stress this enough, especially in your kitchen and bathrooms. Make sure that your floors are either replaced or professionally cleaned before you sell. Buyers simply don't purchase dirty homes.

4. Staging the home: I would start off by examining the lighting in the home to make sure that it's complementary to the way you've arranged your home. Open the windows and install new light bulbs because the brighter a home is, the easier it is to sell. Again, focus on the kitchen and the bathroom when you stage a home.

Hopefully these tips will be helpful in your home sale. They're designed specifically to please a potential home buyer, and if you follow them closely you should expect a quick and painless home selling process.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about Capital District Real Estate!

What's Happening with Real Estate in the Capital District?

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Today I want to give you a brief real estate market update for the Capital District. Whether you're buying or selling, this information should be useful to you.

As we come out of the summer months, we're moving into a seller's market. This is happening because inventory has decreased by 8.7% from 2014. We're also seeing the days on market decreasing, and homes are now sitting on the market for only 63 days compared to 73 days last year. Pending sales are also starting to increase, so that gives us a really good, healthy market.

Median sale prices are increasing, and we currently sit at $220,000. Property values are also rising, so it's a great time to enter the market if you'd like to ride a wave of appreciation.

I can pinpoint three different reasons why the market is performing well right now.

1. Lending institutions are freeing up a lot of requirements for getting a mortgage.

2. Oil prices remain low.

3. Higher wages and lower unemployment rates.

Unfortunately, I do expect interest rates to creep back up, but this will not happen until the end of the year, and even then the change will be very gradual. It's not like rates will jump from 3% to 5% overnight.

If you have any questions about this or if you need assistance buying or selling a home in the Capital District, please don't hesitate to contact me!