If you’ve decided that 2019 is the year to sell your home you may be wondering about the timing. When is the best time to sell your home? What do you need to do to prepare, and when should you do it? This simple home selling real estate calendar will help you plan out the process easily, month by month.
January, February and March
The best time to sell your home is in the spring. Use the frigid winter months for cleaning and preparing a list of home improvements that will fit your budget. Start by taking a close look at your home and view it as a potential buyer would. Look for items that are outdated or damaged and put them on your list.
- Scratched, nicked, or scuffed paint
- Nicks or holes in drywall
- Leaky sinks or pipes
- Water damage on walls, floors or ceiling
- Leaks in the roof
- Outdated decor
- Damaged or outdated fixtures, like lighting or knobs
- Drafty, dirty, or damaged windows
- Damaged or dirty siding
- Clogged rain gutters
Many of these items can improve your homes sale price dramatically without requiring a huge investment. Number these items on your list by priority, so you have a plan for addressing them. Take care of inexpensive items first, like washing windows, cleaning carpets, repainting rooms, and managing gardens. Leave the most expensive items for last, like updating countertops, installing new carpets, or installing a new roof, as it’s easy to go over budget with these items.
Avoid loosing money on improvements by deciding up front how much you can spend. You might use money from your tax returns, some savings, or money you expect to get back from the sale of your improved home. If you’re counting on an improved sale price, it’s best to underestimate how much your improvements will earn, or the cost of improvements can end up eating into the sale price.
Tip: This is a good time to begin working with a real estate agent who can advise you about what improvements are worth the investment of time and money.
April, May and June
The best time to sell your home is in the spring. Increased daylight hours make it easier for buyers to visit homes in the evening. Buyers are enthusiastic and competition from other sellers hasn’t yet reached its peak. In April, weather permitting, you can put the finishing touches on your home. This means making your lawn, gardens and the exterior of your home neat and attractive as the snow melts. This also means staging the inside of your home by removing unnecessary items to make the spaces more open and replacing outdated decor to make the home more inviting. Your real estate agent can assist with staging.
July, August and September
If you listed your home in the Spring you could have already accepted a good offer and possibly closed by now. (The average home closes in approximately 45-50 days from accepted offer to closing day.) If not, consult with your real estate agent and consider what might be interfering with selling your home in what continues to be a “sellers market”. Your agent is a professional who will know from experience what needs to be done to sell your home.
Don’t worry if you’re just getting your home on the market. There will be plenty of buyers still shopping for a home. The supply of available Lansing area homes is far too low to satisfy the demand.
October, November and December
Sales tend slow down during the fall months. Schools are back in session. There is increasingly less daylight time making it difficult to view homes in the evening. Buyers who found a home are gone. Those who didn’t may have decided to leasing until next Spring.
Keep this in mind. Real estate in the greater Lansing area has its busier months as well as slower ones. However, homes are listed all year long and new buyers enter the market constantly.