Selling Your Home in the Spring: Love It or Hate It?

Conventional wisdom says that spring and summer are the times to sell your home. Clearly a lot of people buy into this wisdom, as a full 40 percent of all home sales take place in May, June, July, and August. In Philadelphia, we’re just now seeing the first signs of the end of winter’s bitter chill, and with Daylight Savings in effect, our minds can’t help but think balmy thoughts. Selling in winter has some obvious disadvantages: it’s cold and there is likely snow with which to contend (both of which don’t exactly inspire buyers to leave their toasty homes and come out shopping), and there’s also all the winter holidays, which are roadblocks to closing progress. So here we are, poised on the cusp of the hottest selling season of the year, and you are considering selling your home. Is this a guaranteed good thing? Let’s talk more about this.

Like anything else in life, selling in the spring comes with tons of pros… but there are also some downsides of which you should be aware. No time is perfect in which to sell a home, and you have to weigh your personal positives with the negatives. Naturally, a lot of your decision will do with your neighborhood, the condition of your home, and how prepared you are to commit hardcore to the selling process. With no further ado, however, let’s talk about the love it/hate it dichotomy of springtime home selling.

Pro: Demand, demand, demand

Since it is so embedded in people’s heads that springtime is the time to buy a home, many people will wait until the warmer months to launch their home search. This is fantastic for you as a seller, because it means that there are scores of potential buyers flooding the market, just waiting to see if your house is the perfect one for them. And it also means great things for the selling price of your home: more demand means a higher likelihood that your home will spark a bidding war and fetch you more than your asking price.

On the other hand… competition, competition, competition

The bad news? Everyone got the memo about the spring being a great time to buy and sell, including your neighbors and everyone else in your zip code who was been holding tight to their home and waiting to put it for sale. There’s going to be a lot of buyers out there looking for a home, but there are also going to be a ton of condos, apartments, and homes flooding the market, some in direct competition to your home. To make your home rise above the competition, make sure that all major and minor repairs are completed and that the home is neutrally and attractively staged before you plant that “for sale” sign on the lawn.

Pro: The weather is warm and lovely

We already mentioned this, but nobody wants to come out looking at houses when the weather is icy and bitter. With the warmer weather, buyers come out of the woodwork. Suddenly they are willing to check out weekend open houses and bounce from home to home on a shopping binge. Daylight Savings means that there are more lit hours of the day for buyers to view your home, which is a big benefit for prospective buyers who work a traditional schedule. Plus, the fact that the weather is nice gives you more options for places to go while your house is being shown, since buyers prefer to see the house on their own.

On the other hand… your agent is likely to be busy

There’s no hard-and-fast rule or guideline as to how many clients an agent should be able to juggle while still giving everyone their deserved attention, but the fact is that springtime is a time of year when agents can get easily overwhelmed. Make sure when you interview your agent that you secure their assurance that you will be high on their priority list and won’t have to chase them down to get things done.

In conclusion, springtime is in fact a great time to sell a home, but there are downsides to consider as well. Make sure that you have personally done your best to prepare your home for sale and pick the right pros to help you, and you may be able to harness that warm-weather magic that everyone in real estate talks about.