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Guide to Listing Your Home

If you’re thinking about selling within the next few months, here are a few things to keep in mind. There is an increase in inventory during the summer—get your home listed before more hit the market and you’ll find yourself in a sea of serious buyers on the lookout for their dream homes. Springtime also brings in significant price increases, and your home will likely sell for the best value.

If you decide to sell soon, get in touch with me and follow this simple guide to get your home on the market this coming year!

Meet with me.
-Set listing plan
-Set list price of your home
-Schedule Trueview marketing

Begin or complete deferred projects.
-Clean-up landscaping
-Interior/exterior painting
-Unfinished DIY projects

De-clutter Home.
-Garage sale
-Donate items
-Begin packing

Choose your next destination.
-Conduct neighborhood research
-Are you upsizing or downsizing?
-Determine price range

TrueView.
-Final cleaning for photo and video shoot
-Review and approve marketing materials
-Prepare for Open Houses and showings

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The Right Time to Sell

It’s one thing to hear buzz about the real estate market heating up (it’s an exciting indicator for those looking to sell), but it should really prompt home owners to take a deeper look at their own property and then gauge the most strategic time for them to enter the marketplace.

Looking at the inventory trend (the number of homes on the market) over the last several years, we’re seeing a steady decline in quantity. Certain aspects remain predictable, like the obvious seasonal rhythm in Portland’s buying trend. And even a glance at these graphs confirms that it’s a definitely seller’s market. With fewer homes available, demand must be higher, right?

Yes and no. The clamor over “quality homes” is higher than ever. Well-presented properties with desirable traits can spark multiple-offer situations (bidding wars), pushing up the final selling price. But our region also possesses an educated buyer pool, savvy to artificial hype due to limited selection.

So we must gauge what makes your property special. If it’s your outdoor spaces, it can actually be beneficial to hold off until everything is in full-bloom for a TrueView photo/video shoot on a sunny day. Or if it will be possible to professionally stage your home in two months, the investment can be well worth the wait. Every seller’s situation is unique.

Inventory is down, absorption rate (the percentage of available homes that are being purchased) is up, but that’s certainly no reason to panic into selling. Also, this data shows the trend of the greater Portland market. The most valuable data for your situation can be gathered from your neighborhood market.

Now is the perfect time to partner with your favorite agent and formulate the best plan for your home!

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Summer Selling Starts in January

It’s hard to believe, but selling your home by summer 2013 can mean starting at the beginning of the new year. Starting preparations in January helps create an easy and smooth selling experience so you can focus on the next step. On average, it takes about 4 to 6 weeks to get your home ready to go on the market. That might include two to four weeks for minor repairs and freshening to get top value, and another two weeks for our marketing team in the M Media Truck to capture the story of your home and create all of the amazing materials to show your home to its best advantage. Professional staging needs to be squeezed in there too.

That means your home would be ready for the market in February or early March, which is an ideal time to start marketing a home in Portland. Buyers are usually waiting eagerly for new listings in the late winter and early spring. Sellers who wait until May or June to list their homes have a lot more competition in the marketplace, which can sometimes mean a lower sales price.

Based on the average days on market for homes in Portland, your home could receive an offer in two to six weeks, depending on a variety of factors. That gets us into April. The transaction could close by May, and you would be ready to move on to the next step by June.

Starting in January allows you to take the time you need to sell and prepare for what comes after. Let’s strategieze about the best timing and how to sell your home in 2013.