Thinking of Putting Your San Carlos Home on the Market This Fall?

August 6, 2013

forsale-sold

Then You Should be Getting it Ready.. NOW.

There are two distinct real estate market during the course of the year in San Carlos.  The Spring market, which everyone is accustomed to, runs from roughly March through June, and is easily the biggest market period of the year for home sales.   For many years, people have just become conditioned to buying and selling real estate during the Spring months.

But there is another very robust, albeit smaller, secondary real estate market that takes place in San Carlos too.   After the summer lull in the market that usually accompanies July and August, the Fall market kicks into full gear and runs right up to the Thanksgiving holiday before it essentially shuts down for the remainder of the year.   The start of the Fall market generally coincides with when the kids go back to school — which used to be after Labor Day weekend.     But now most kids (except for those in the UC System) are back at it by the third week of August.    That means the fall market now starts in the weeks leading up to Labor Day weekend.

And in case you haven't looked at your calendar recently, that's only a few weeks away.

Preparation vs Market Timing.

One of the questions that often comes up when someone is thinking about selling is how much they should do to prepare the home for sale.   Should they just do a quick cleanup and refresh, or spend some time and $$ remodeling the bathrooms and kitchen to perhaps garner a higher price?    Taking aside the return-on-investment strategy for the time being, one has to look at what the timing of these improvements mean to your go-to-market strategy.   In other words, if you want to get your home on the market this fall, will you be able to get these improvements done in time?

Generally speaking, the earlier you put your home on the market in the fall, the better you're going to do.  Buyers who are actively looking in this period have very likely been looking all year, and are anxious to get their home purchase locked up before the holiday season sets in.   Sellers who understand this pent-up anxiety are wise to get their homes on the market in late-August or early September.   Conversely, the closer you get to the holidays to listing your home, the more buyers will be dropping out of the market to focus on the holidays, so you might not get the audience you were hoping for.

So, home sellers have to weigh the schedule impact of their desired improvements — will it push them too far toward the end of the year and miss the fall market?  Will it mean selling the home in 2014 instead of 2013?   Does getting an extra few thousand dollars in return on improvements make it worth a delay of several months?  Only the sellers can answer those questions.

But for those who DO plan to sell their home this fall, they really should be getting it ready to go right now.

Need Help?

Do you need help understanding how to get your house ready for sale?  Trying to understand what you should (or shouldn't) invest in your home to sell it?   I'm more than happy to help you wade through it.   Just drop me a line.

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