Month: September 2022

Deciding to place your home on the market this fall? That’s great! Getting your home ready for sale is just as important in the fall and maintaining curb appeal requires different attention than in the spring and summer. Follow these six tips for selling your home this fall, and you might just get it sold before the last leaf falls.

Tips for Selling Your Home this Fall & Easy Fixes to Help Buyers Fall in Love

1. Don’t ‘Leave’ a Mess

While fall leaves are gorgeous to look at on trees, once they hit the ground they no longer add to the beauty of your property. Make a good first impression and get rid of leaves with a leaf blower or rake so the first thing buyers see is your home, not the amount of raking they will have to do each year! Clear walkways, your driveway, and your lawn, and be sure to pick up any stray branches as well.

2. Fall for Flowers

Gardens and landscaping can add to curb appeal when selling your home. Decaying plants, especially at the front of your home, don’t exactly say, welcome. If your summer flowers have died, it’s best to replace them or remove them.  Consider planting mums or fall flowers in flower beds and adding fresh mulch. (Mums can withstand cooler weather and come in beautiful fall colours). If you don’t have a garden or prefer not to plant flowers in them, try using urns or large pots instead.

3. Don’t be a Bore, Paint your Door

A freshly painted front door in a complimentary colour can give your home an upgraded look and help set it apart from other homes in the neighbourhood. Early fall, before wet and cold weather hits, is perfect for painting as the summer humidity and bright sun can cause a paint job to peel or crack. Another way to dress up your door is to change the hardware. Having new locks or handles without scratches or dents in an updated finish can make your door seem like new. This attention to detail can make the right first impression as buyers enter your home.

Hint: Choose a colour that will brighten up your façade and compliment your brick. While it’s best to keep exterior paint colours neutral on windows, garage doors, and siding, the front door is a chance to use colour. Have grey brick? Consider a deep red or blue. 

4. Lighten Up

Let’s face it without the summer sun, on darker days the inside of homes can look dreary. Here are some tips to minimize the impact of duller days.

• Clean your windows and screens on both sides before listing
• Make sure all blinds, and window coverings are open as wide as they can go
• Show your home earlier in the day if possible
• Consider outdoor landscape lighting, patio lighting, or solar pathway lighting

5. Give Sweater Weather Vibes

Keep your home feeling cozy from the outside in. Incorporate fall décor around your home’s exterior – it can be as simple as a wreath on the front door to a fully staged fall patio session, complete with chunky knit blankets and all! Inside, consider highlighting your fireplace if you have one, minimize clutter, and placing a throw on the couch. Make your home feel welcoming and buyers may just want to stay.

6. Festive Frights Not Always a Delight

If you’re selling your home during Halloween season, unless you’re selling to the Addams Family, you might want to nix the spooky décor. If you want to decorate, use pumpkins or décor that can be easily stored away during showings. Just be sure the festive spirit doesn’t dampen the buying spirit of those viewing your home.

Fall is the time for new beginnings. Follow these tips to help get your home sold and hopefully before you know it, you will be starting yours.

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 us for a complimentary home evaluation! We can advise you on the best way to showcase your home to help potential buyers visualize it as their own.

Ready to list? Contact us today!