Why Fall Might Be the Best Time to Sell Your Home

About the time pumpkin spice lattes hit the menu at your local café you may want to have your house ready to hit the market. Why? Next to spring, fall is arguably the best time to sell your home. In fact, it may even have some advantages over the spring market. Read on to learn why fall might be the best time to wear plaid, indulge in everything pumpkin and sell your home.

Ready to Fall in Love with the Fall Market? Here’s Why It Could Be the Best Time to Sell Your Home:

If you missed the spring market or your intentions to move got waylaid by long weekend plans and summer days, it doesn’t mean you have to wait until next year to sell your home. Placing your home for sale in the fall market has many benefits that may surprise you.

Sell your home in sweater weather and you might:

1. Have Less Competition

What if only a hundred people bought lottery tickets? Your chances of winning would be pretty amazing, right? The fall housing market might not be the lottery, but with the traditionally busy spring selling season behind you, your listing could face less competition in the fall. This also means buyers are less likely to look for a ‘better’ option. If your home is the only one for sale on your block then a buyer can’t compare your house to the one down the street with the slightly bigger yard. This can be especially helpful in a cooler market.

2. Get a Better Price

Reduced inventory and fewer choices for buyers may mean the opportunity to achieve a higher price for your home. Since homes that haven’t yet sold from the spring/summer market may be considered stale listings in the eyes of some buyers, those who are still looking will be eager to see something new. On the flip side, if you’re buying a home to move into, you could potentially negotiate a good price on one of those listings that has been on the market for a while.

3. Attract Different Buyers

Fall may attract a different pool of buyers including:

• Corporate Movers – Companies looking to relocate their employees and footing the bill for the move may wait until fall hoping they might get a better price or a faster closing.
• Motivated Buyers – Remember when bread only came in white or whole wheat? Now you have rye, low carb, gluten free, and everything in-between. While it’s nice to have options, too many can cause decision fatigue which may cause you to second guess decisions or not make them at all. (We make thousands of decisions every day!) The same may be true in the spring market. The more choices a buyer has, the more they compare. This may cause them to miss out on a property. Those same buyers still looking to move come fall might be especially motivated to make their decision and have a quick closing, especially if they’ve already sold their home. Another motivating factor? Closing before the snow starts to fly and the holiday season hits.
• Different Demographics – While buyers with school-aged children often want a closing date before September, fall is the perfect opportunity to appeal to those moving within the same school district. Other demographics such as empty-nesters, millennials, and buyers without school-aged children may also wait until the fall to shop the market.

Pumpkin Spice and Sales Season? Yes!

While autumn signals the end of summer (sniff) it can also be a new beginning. If you used the summer to complete renovation projects on your home and were thinking you’d have to wait until spring to list, fall may be the opportune time to sell your home. List in the fall market and by the time the pumpkin spice craze turns to candy cane concoctions your home could be sold.

Have questions about the fall housing market? Reach out to a RE/MAX agent for an evaluation. A RE/MAX agent can advise you on the best way to showcase your home to help potential buyers visualize it as their own.

Ready to list? Find a local agent at remax.ca.

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Have More Questions?

If so, you’re not alone. RE/MAX Canada hit the streets in a new video series to find out just how much (or how little!) the average person knows about the housing market, and offer some answers in the process.

Originally published on the RE/MAX Canada Blog.