Your Questions About Selling a Home in Winter, Answered
Written by Suzie Wilson
It would make sense to assume that selling a house in the fall or winter is a bad idea. After all, the high season for home sales is spring, more specifically early May. It’s easy to understand why. Few people want to get into the hard work involved with purchasing a house during the cold and dark winter months, so they wait for better weather to start looking.
However, this is an overgeneralization and not a useful one. There are many reasons why someone would choose to buy a house during the winter, and plenty of homeowners who make great sales during this time of year. It may take a bit more thought and preparation, but selling a house in winter can be just as profitable as going on the market any other time of year.
Why Sell a House in Winter?
For one, you will be dealing with a reduced pool of potential buyers — which is a good thing. This means more competition for your house and fewer time-wasters, which can both drive up prices and speed up the process. This great article expands further on these points. Another good reason is that you should sell your house whenever suits you. If you wait several months to sell, you may be delaying your life plans significantly for no reason other than a general market trend, which may not apply to you.
Will My House Sell for Less?
This is heavily dependent on housing trends in your area. Getting educated on average sale prices and general trends in your city should always be your first step. For instance, Redfin can tell you that homes in Rockville, Maryland, have sold for an average of $535,000 in the last month. You can safely assume that these figures won’t drastically change one month to the next, so you can use this information to guide your decisions.
How Can I Achieve Good Curb Appeal?
Curb appeal is one of the main reasons why a house may appear more appealing in the spring — everything does. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make a great first impression during the winter. You can use bright colors on your door, plant pots, and furniture to make the house seem bright and cheery, and a bit of basic maintenance will keep the front yard looking neat. Check out this detailed guide to winter curb appeal for more ideas.
What Are Some Areas I Need to Focus On?
Lighting is incredibly important because potential buyers are likely to be seeing your home in the dark. Effective winter lighting can make any house seem bright and cheerful, no matter how dark and gloomy it is outside. Make sure there are various light sources in every room creating a warm, pleasant effect, as well as enough light outside to make the house feel inviting.
Don’t forget other key aspects of home staging. Decluttering is particularly important, which can be challenging during the holidays when every inch of the house is usually covered in decor. This article by Realtor.com has some very useful suggestions on keeping the house in the holiday spirit without possibly hurting a sale.
You should also look at doing any winter maintenance on the house as soon as possible. Buyers in the spring are more likely to forget or ignore these issues, but they will be at the forefront of their mind during the cold season. Work your way through this checklist so your house is super winter-ready.
As you can see, selling a house during the winter months is not impossible or even particularly complicated. The buyers are there, and the market does not slow down enough to detract you from going for it. At the end of the day, it just takes more planning and forethought to make a home look attractive and inviting in the cold weather.