10 Tips For Selling Your Home This Spring

If you’re planning to sell your home in the Washington area during the spring, you may be feeling fairly positive, even with the coronavirus impacting the region.

After all, the region has a good demand for homes and a persistent shortage of property for sale. Home values have been steadily increasing for years. But before you get too complacent, it’s important to recognize that home buyers in the region are savvy and, like their counterparts around the country, have high expectations for the condition and appearance of their next home.

The median sales price for a home in the region was $460,000 in February 2020, up 7.7 percent compared with February 2019. The number of closings in February 2020 was 13 percent higher than that same month the previous year, and homes sold in a median of 21 days, 10 days faster than in February 2019. Sellers in the region received an average of 98.5 percent of their original asking price when they sold their home in February 2020, the highest ratio in the past decade.

All the above statistics are good news for sellers. However, a good piece of news for buyers is that the number of new listings in February 2020 (5,458) was up 11 percent compared with the number of homes that were put on the market in February 2019. That’s a healthy increase and the most new listings in any February since February 2017, which means that buyers have a few more options and sellers face a little more competition.

In addition to looking out for competition, sellers in the coming months need to keep something even more important in mind: The pace of sales and the ability of sellers to attract buyers varies not only by neighborhood and school district, but even on a street-by-street and house-by-house level.

Here are 10 tips to help you sell your home this spring:

1. Interview several real estate agents. You’ll want an experienced local real estate agent you can trust to provide you with market insight, marketing expertise and negotiating skills. Interviewing more than one agent gives you an opportunity to educate yourself on what agents think about your home’s appeal to buyers in the context of your neighborhood’s market. Just don’t fall into the trap of hiring the one who suggests the highest initial list price. The market ultimately determines the price and not an agent. The agent can provide a detailed comparative market analysis of your house and similar properties in the neighborhood to help you determine how best to appeal to buyers.

2. Check out the competition. Take an afternoon to go to view virtual tours and model homes in your price range to get an idea of what buyers are seeing.

3. Tour your own home. Taking the emotion out of selling can be tough for most homeowners, especially if you’re selling a place you love. But try to take the blinders off and see what a buyer will see. Look for places where small improvements such as swapping out the hardware, removing items or painting a wall can make a big difference.

4. Start packing. The sooner you start donating, selling, packing or trashing your items, the faster you’ll be ready for showings. Declutter and empty your closets so it looks like you have plenty of storage space.

5. Organize your paperwork. You can help your agent with the marketing, and eventually your own post-sale taxes, by pulling together information about your purchase of the house, home improvements and maintenance.

6. Clean and repair. Your agent can help you identify the best places to spend any home improvement money, but among the most important things you can do is hire professionals to get your home as pristine as possible. Make minor repairs to demonstrate how well you’ve maintained your home.

7. Stage your home inside and out. Don’t forget that a little landscaping and polishing the front doorknob can make the difference between a buyer driving by or touring your home. Curb appeal is just as important as staging the inside.

8. Price it right. Your agent can advise you on the price that fits your house and neighborhood. Don’t be tempted to “try out” a high price just to see if you can catch a buyer. Buyers may ignore your listing. A languishing listing that has been on the market for days with several price reductions ultimately sells for less than it would have gotten if priced to market on Day One.

9. Make your home available. While buyers shop online, they also want to look at your place in person at their convenience. It’s best to make that as easy as possible for them and your house can’t become their home if you are in there during showings. Get out and give them space to make a buying decision.

10. Be ready to negotiate. Know your numbers and preferences for what you can accept.

Selling your house this spring may be easier with a tight housing market, but it can be even easier and more successful if you prepare yourself and educate yourself about the market.

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Coile, Jon. “10 tips for selling your home this spring” The Washington Post, March 24 2020.