List your Home in Winter and Get a Leg Up on the Competition
October 29th, 2008 categories: Selling your Home
It may seem counter-intuitive to some to list your home during the winter months. You hear comments such as, “No one buys a home in winter” or “My property doesn’t look as good without leaves on the trees.” While this may be true in some areas, it certainly is not true for the Northwest Arkansas real estate market. Don’t believe me? Here’s some food for thought:
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Residential sales in Northwest Arkansas for the months of November through February have always been strong:
‘05/’06 2,230 units out of 7,682 total sales 29% of sales year over year
‘06/’07 2,071 units out of 6,759 total sales 31% of sales year over year
‘07/’08 1,385 units out of 4,967 total sales 28% of sales year over year
I think that about says it. Home sales in winter drop by only a couple of percent during these months and the main reason for that is that there are fewer homes on the market. Listing your home in winter may be the secret to getting an overpriced or “bloated” property to sell.
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Supply in the winter months dwindles because people think you can’t sell a home in the wintertime. By the law of supply and demand, your home shows more:
‘05/’06 new winter listings 4,689 new summer listings 5,968
‘06/’07 new winter listings 4,499 new summer listings 6,201
‘07/’08 new winter listings 4,082 new summer listings 4,675
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Winter buyers WANT and NEED to buy a home, that’s why they’re looking.
Anytime a buyer is willing to brave the sleet and snow to look at a house, they are probably P.D.M. (pretty darn motivated). These buyers will make higher offers with more favorable terms and conditions for sellers because they have a motivation to buy now.
So, do sales go down in winter? Do people stop looking at homes? Is it just not worth listing your house because no one is looking? The answer, as you can see, is emphatically, NO. List your home October thru February and you will have a definite leg up on the competition. Do you have a winter sale success story you want to share? Leave a comment. Do you want to be able to share a winter sale success story? Ask me how.
