When is the Best Time to Sale Your Home?

Assuming yours is a single family unit: House or Condo…

You often read that in the spring is the best time to sell a home. I strongly disagree.

In today’s market, the average home in Montreal takes around 2 to 3 months to sell- if priced according to the current market. You want to be closing in the spring, not listing it. By the time spring comes, you want your home SOLD – and not still for sale, otherwise you’ll be missing the boat.

When should you list it then? In the winter: end of January, beginning of February. Your home will have enough time to be well marketed, have serious buyers to visit it and get an offer in the table- hopefully a good one- and be sold by the spring.

Of course, you will need a good agent that knows how to market your property.
Contact us for all you Real Estate needs. Free appraisal, no hassle, no obligations.

2009 December’s Market: Looking Good

December’s market seem to be very active this year. No need for the monthly sales stats to confirm that. Normally it is a slow month, because of the Holidays. Most people are into Christmas shopping, Christmas dinner parties, and little time to seriously visit homes. But there are still buyers calling for information and getting their finances ready for the next year – which is only a few weeks away. Many people are waiting for the new year to seriously start looking at homes.

There are still plenty of agents working over the holidays, as most take their vacation in the summer. I skipped my summer vacation this year (well, partially), and decided to go away for the holidays instead – Don’t hate me for it. Sheila is staying to cover for me while I’m away, and several blog posts have been schedule for when I’m gone.

Back to this month’s market…

There should be activity right after Christmas Day. I find it amazing how people can be so dedicated to finding a home right after the customary family and social (and/or religious) responsibilities such as Christmas. From the 26th on, the phones shall be constantly ringing.

If you’re selling your home, that is good news. Although you will not get the same amount of prospective buyers as, say for example in February. But you can rest assure that those few people who are visiting during the holidays are seriously looking to buy a home. Otherwise, they’ll be staying in, eating the leftover turkey and drinking eggnog.

Home Staging – 10 tips for better sale

Are you interested in selling your house fast and for top dollar?
If the answer is ‘YES’, then you need to get it ready to look and feel its best. The concept of Home Staging is not new and is used extensively in the USA and Western Canada to market real estate.

These Home Staging tips cover some of the things you can easily do yourself at a minimal cost.

1. Before you do anything, you have to stop thinking of your house as a HOME and start thinking about it as an investment, for which you want the largest return possible.
2. If you don’t have pictures that show your house at its best, you are probably missing out on dozens, if not hundreds of potential buyers.
3. Curb appeal (or, lack of thereof) can deter a visitor from wanting to pursue. The exterior of your house has to be clean and taken care of.
4. Buyers want to see space, above anything else. You have to declutter, so the visitors can focus on the house and not on your stuff.
5. Chipped paint, loose or missing tiles, broken door handle, a closet door that doesn’t quite close properly can become a BIG turnoff for a potential buyer. Fix!
6. Painting is the cheapest way to transform a room! Repaint main rooms in fresh, neutral colors.
7. Refresh and update. Simple things such as a new bed ensemble, a few decorative pillows and two nice table lamps will transform a bedroom.
8. Make the house as neutral as possible to please a variety of potential buyers and their lifestyle and taste.
9. Make sure there is sufficient light in every room– you can’t have too much light!
10. Space optimization and proper furniture and accessories placement is essential. It will give a home a warm and appealing look and feel and create the WOW factor.

So, a small effort will pay of at the sale time. Stage your house-sell your house WELL!

How To Avoid the 10 Biggest Mistakes Home Sellers Make – Video

Although most of this video’s content has been already mentioned in one of our first posts

Here is an animation with some important tips and reminders on how to present your home before selling, avoid mistakes when accepting offers, and how to deal with buyers.
I loved the “home-made” style animation, simple and to the point. Mind you, this video was made with a target audience of “House owners” and not condos.

There’s the curb appeal aspect and the get rid of pets for visits-type of advice that…well, for condo people with pets (like myself) doesn’t really work. Imagine having to knock on your neighbour’s door across the hall to ask him:”Can you please take my 2 cats, dog and ferret for about an hour? I really appreciate it! I have potential buyers coming over, gotta go!” – Doesn’t really work, does it? But apart from that, I would say it is quite educational. Here it is, enjoy it.

Comments, opinions and questions are welcome!

Don’t ever miss a post! Subscribe to the Montreal Real Estate Blog

Dropping your price a little too late?

You started out with a high listing price. It’s been a while since your property is for sale…and no offers.

What could be wrong?

The property is in a hot neighbourhood, so the location is not the problem.

The conditions are great; top-notch with lots of renovations. You even got complemented on the décor and how well maintained it was.

Then why are there no offers?

Could it be the price?

After giving it some thought, you realized that perhaps, the reason why those few visitors never made an offer is because your property might be over the market value.

And you should know what the market value is…

Before listing your property, you checked the MLS for the current listings in your area, compared to similar properties, called an agent to give you a free home evaluation (just to make sure) and got a sheet called the “” (CMA), then decided what the asking price should be – regardless of what that CMA thingy said about the suggested asking price. Did you not?

Ok.

Now your property is NOT selling. What do you do next?

You drop the price. But, by now it might be a little too late. Your property is old news.

(The Risks of) selling your home above market price.

Let’s say you finally get an accepted offer for your house, from an uninformed buyer.

Like most buyers out there, they will need a mortgage; in these situations the offer to purchase is conditional to mortgage approval. No mortgage, no deal.

When receiving the (signed and final) offer to purchase, the mortgage lender requires an appraisal of the property before they consent to the financing. If the current market conditions and the comparable sales for the last six months do not support your sales price, the banks won’t approve it.

The lender will give their own appraisal to the buyer, and the amount they are willing to lend based on that evaluation. If the buyer is putting 20% down payment, the bank will finance 80%. Not a penny more. Which means: the buyers have to get more money, so they can afford your property.

And your deal falls through.

If the buyer is still interested, you can try to re-negotiate the price or the terms. But if not, your property could go back on the market.

Remember:

The longer a home sits on the market, the harder it is to get a good offer.

Once the offer expires, your property is available for new visits, but by now any informed potential buyer who kept an eye on your property will know there were offers on the table, and if they don’t know they will ask. It is your responsibility (or your listing agent’s) to reveal the reasons why the deal didn’t go through, without disclosing the previous accepted price.

There’s nothing more frustrating than having all the ingredients for a successful sale, (pre-approved buyer, a good inspection report, etc.) and then having the bank refusing to lend the money because the property “Is not worth that amount”

New buyers interested in making an offer will think that since the property has been on the market so long; the owner might be desperate to sell by now, and making a low-ball offer will probably get accepted.

By starting out with a high listing price, you could end up selling for a much lower price.

Here are a few more reasons why you should not overprice your home

Get more home selling tips: Subscribe to the Montreal Real Estate Blog