While you may have heard that the housing market begins to heat up and take off during the spring months, winter is also a great time to sell! The holidays are often overlooked as a prime time to put your home on the market, but it may be the perfect opportunity to make your house stand out, especially with the lack of inventory!
So what can you do to sell your home faster and for more this holiday season? Let’s look at how to make your home warm and inviting while selling during the most wonderful time of the year.
- Enhance Your Hampton Roads Home’s Curb Appeal
- Staging For the Holidays
- Keep Your Property Safe For Buyers
- Turn Those Lights On!
- Price Your Hampton Roads House to Sell
- Take Professional Photos
- Use Santa’s Point of View
Enhance Your Hampton Roads Home’s Curb Appeal
Even though the cold winter weather might not make your lawn as great as it would during warmer months, you shouldn’t let that stop your Hampton Roads property from looking its best! Curb appeal should always be one of your top focuses while selling in the winter. A good starting point would be picking weeds and removing dead sticks, but it could also help to have pictures of your home when your lawn is blooming! This will also help potential buyers see your home’s beauty for themselves.
Staging For the Holidays
People often ask us, “Should I put up my holiday decorations even though I am trying to sell my home?” The answer is “ABSOLUTELY!” Though many of us probably have a way we’re used to decorating our homes, this time, you should be decorating for the appeal of your buyers. Use your best decorations to accentuate your home’s features, trying not to distract your buyer’s attention from them.
You should avoid putting up giant Christmas trees or filling your home to the brim with winter-themed trinkets like snow globes, nutcrackers, or over-the-top decorations. Enhance your home’s features, don’t bury them!
Keep Your Property Safe for Buyers
With the temperature dropping outside, snow, ice, and icicles will soon begin falling upon our homes. A huge concern for home sellers is making sure they can keep their property safe for buyers to visit. Stay proactive in making your pathways and driveways free of snow and ice, and if you’re expecting a huge snowstorm, you may want to look into hiring a professional to clear your property.
Turn Those Lights On!
To complement the warm coziness of your home during this holiday season, you should make it brighter! Winter is the darkest season, so turning on all the lights will really help brighten your Hampton Roads house. This means you’ll want to change all of your burnt-out bulbs, and fix those broken switches that will help you keep consistent light through your home. If your home comes with a fireplace, light it up to further enhance the warm ambiance your buyers will love!
Price Your House to Sell
Whenever you hire an agent, they will most likely help you come up with a price for your home that is comparable to other homes in your area. However, there are a couple of easy tricks to use your home’s price itself to attract potential buyers.
Price your home below other homes in the neighborhood to drive more traffic to your property. However, if your home comes with special features that similar homes don’t, like a pool, more land, a larger driveway, etc. your marketing should aggressively reflect those additions.
Pricing is your first marketing strategy and that is why it’s important to be educated on pricing in the market before starting the process of selling your home.
Take Professional Photos
Research shows that the best thing you can do in terms of marketing to buyers is to have professional photos taken of your home. Professional photos will likely help sell your Hampton Roads home faster and for top dollar since they’ll be the first thing interested buyers look at. Though you should make sure when you take your photos that you take them before you do your decorating for the holidays.
Utilize Santa’s Point of View
Aerial photography is a great idea for showing off your home during the holiday season, especially if your home has acreage or a view. Oftentimes, these qualities cannot be featured if they’re photographed traditionally.
The Bottom Line
We understand the hesitation to keep your home on the market as the days shorten, the weather grows grim, and the busy holiday season rapidly approaches. But taking your home off the market will cause you to miss out on the biggest opportunity for selling your home. If you position yourself correctly, you will reap the benefits!
If you need help navigating the fall and winter markets, look no further than Reynolds EmpowerHome Team! We know the market and can help you get your Hampton Roads home sold fast and for top dollar this Holiday Season. Don’t wait until Spring when you will get less money for your home—act today and get top dollar!
We sell our listings 3 times FASTER and FOR MORE than when you work with another agent. We do this by leveraging our database of OVER 14,466 qualified buyers in our Buyers in Waiting Program!
Did you know that only 48% of homes that went on the market last year sold the first time with the first agent they hired? Most sellers last year had to call a 2nd or 3rd agent to get the job done, or even worse, not sell at all. The agent you hire the first time matters! Reynolds EmpowerHome Team sells 98% of our listings the first time, so when you hire us, your home is more likely to sell fast & for top dollar! To find out what we can do for you, Call or Text us at 804-486-7388!
Your Home SOLD Guaranteed At a Price You Agree to or We’ll Buy It.* No Gimmicks!