Tips To Sell Your Home In The Winter

During the winter months in Edmonton, weekday and weekend nights are usually spent huddled on the couch, watching the television and focusing on work related projects that are saved for the tempered indoors. As the colder weather moves in, buyers start re-focusing their attention to the distant unused corners of a home, the flooring, and areas with high levels of natural light, rather than focusing on the entire property in the spring and summer. Sellers should place lush and beautiful rugs on the ground, set an abundance of pillows on the beds and couches, and display scented candles throughout the house to give buyers the ability to feel a sense of warmth and coziness that the winter cold can bring. Adding simple elements to your home is very important during the colder and darker days, as the focal point of potential buyers will narrow in directly to the actual house, not so much the entire property.

While spring and summer in Edmonton provides no shortage of natural light, the winter months can sure leave many individuals with days on end with no contact of the warming sun. From the months of October until March, Edmonton may only averages 3 hours of natural light if fortunate, all being dependent on the clouds and the severity of the winter storms. If possible, home showings should be schedules during the day to emphasize the warmer features of your home, while turning on exterior lights can also help boost your curb appeal. Before showings, curtains should be pulled back and lamps should be turned on to lighten up the darker areas of your home. Lights in hallways should be strategically dimmed if possible to highlight areas of use in your house.

While having a nice curb appeal is more heavily focused on in the spring and summer months, many sellers tend to forget the concept "the first impression may be the only impression" as winter rolls in. With this said, at all time of the year, sellers better make sure their home is inviting and well kept. Shovelling your driveway, turning on exterior lights, and if time permissive, showing the presence of Christmas cheer with lights and other various decor items can sure add value to possible buyers. Doing this not only increases the potential of your home actually selling, but will make your property look like it's been "well taken care of". Like I said, don't forget your curb appeal when you list your house for sale in the winter.

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Selling a home isn’t only about making your house pretty and staking a sign in the yard on the right day: It’s a lot to do with understanding home buyers on both a broad and specific level.

Before you pull a price out of the sky, take time to find out what nearby homes, like yours, have sold for. This information is available from a Realtor or by going onto various MLS web sites and doing some research. A well-priced home is going to sell more quickly than a home that is priced too high. The most benificial way to price out your home is to have a Realtor perform a property valuation or higher an appraiser to perform an appraisal. Pricing your home properly is key. Many homeowners think their home is worth more than the comparable analysis indicates. Once a homeowner removes their emotions from the home, they typically find that the property is priced correctly.

No matter how analytical you think you can be, over the years I have found approximately 4 out of 10 sellers will initially agree with my pricing. They are the ones who get their homes sold the fastest for the top dollar. Those who dislike the proven pricing strategies that I employee may eventually agree to lower the price if we don’t get an offer in the first two weeks. Most of them stick to that and then we get the house sold. The only issue with "needing to be sure” that their home isn't priced to low is that once you lower the price and have had the home on the market for some time, it is no longer a new listing.

Starting out with the right price is key. If you are worried that your agent wants to price your home "too low" (trust me, i'm sure its priced aggressively) you’re most likely going to get a dozen offers and raise the dollar amount to where it’s supposed to be. Pricing it right is just smart business, and will get you the fastest and best profit.

Clean the place. When buyers are looking for a house, they want to move in immediately or in a couple of weeks. They don’t want to be bothered by cleaning the house. When they go for house visits, they know it’s secondhand but they still expect it to look brand new.

Clean out the clutter. As noted above, we collect more than we realize. Having a garage sale or boxing things up for charity is good to do before even listing your house. If you have a great deal of belongings, consider storing some things in the garage or a storage unit.

Remove personal mementos and family pictures if possible. When prospective buyers walk into your home, you want them to be able to imagine it as being theirs. It’s easier for them to view it as possibly being their own home if they don’t see evidence that another family lives there.

Do something with litter boxes. If you have cats, find a way to get the litter box out of the house—perhaps in a garage if possible. Same goes with pet odors in general. Just as we become immune to our surroundings, we become immune to the odors. Be sure your home doesn’t smell like your pets, urine, fish, or steamed broccoli for that matter. Ask your agent if you’re unsure. Purchase some air fresheners that can be plugged into the wall in each room. This is a very wise investment for any home seller.

Keep this simple. A softer light usually does justice in a modest home while a brighter light (LED) does justice in a modern home (most of the time). It is very important to accentuate key features of the house such as the kitchen and living room with brighter lighting, while having dens and bedrooms on dimmers with softer lights. If you are planning on selling an older home, one of the most cost effective strategies is repaint the house to a neutral and lighter colour while changing the old yellower lights to bright LEDs. Spending a little time and a little money doing just this may turn out to be the best investment for you.