Best Time to Sell Your Home in the Twin Cities | YourWebsite.com
When Is the Best Time to Sell My Home in the Twin Cities?
As winter's chill recedes, the Twin Cities real estate scene bursts into life. This period is characterized by a surge in buyer activity, with many individuals armed with pre-approvals and a keen readiness to invest in their next home. This bustling atmosphere is not just a seasonal spectacle; it's a golden window for sellers. The scarcity of listings combined with the high demand creates a seller's market, where properties often attract multiple offers, some even surpassing the asking price.
The Spring Market Surge: A Seller's Paradise
Forecasting the market's favorability towards sellers in the Twin Cities, the answer is a resounding yes. The alignment of favorable interest rates, a strong buyer presence, and limited inventory creates an environment ripe for sellers to achieve exceptional outcomes. This unique confluence of factors makes early spring not just a good time, but potentially the best time to list your home.
Lifestyle Changes and Real Estate Decisions
The decision to sell often coincides with a desire for lifestyle changes—whether it's upsizing to accommodate a growing family, downsizing in the wake of an empty nest, or simply seeking a change of scenery or pace. The spring market offers a versatile platform for these transitions, providing sellers with the leverage to navigate towards their next chapter under advantageous terms.
Capitalizing on the Spring Market: Strategies for Success
To truly leverage the spring selling season, preparation and strategic planning are key. Ensuring your home...
When Is The Best Time To List My House? An In-Depth Analysis
Deciding when to list your house is a pivotal decision that can significantly impact the success of your sale. While the optimal time to sell a house can vary based on local market conditions, broader real estate trends provide valuable insights. In this blog post, we'll explore the best times to list your house for sale, considering various factors that influence the housing market.
Understanding Seasonal Trends in Real Estate
Broadly speaking, spring emerges as the prime season for selling homes. This period, typically defined as late March through June, aligns with several factors that make it an ideal time for real estate transactions:
Spring: The Golden Season for Sellers
- Favorable Weather: Warmer, longer days in spring make house hunting more appealing. Properties look their best with blooming gardens and extended daylight hours for showings.
- School-Year Considerations: Many families aim to relocate during summer to avoid disrupting the school year, making spring an ideal time to start house hunting.
- Tax Refunds: With tax refunds in hand, potential buyers may have extra funds for down payments.
Late Spring and Early Summer: The Peak Months
Specifically, late spring and early summer - May, June, and April - are often the peak months for selling homes. During this period, sellers can potentially net thousands of dollars more compared to the slower months of October, November, and December. This trend is supported by a comprehensive analysis conducted in 2023.
Fall and Winter: The Off-Peak Seasons
In contrast, fall and winter generally see a dip in homebuying activity. Several factors contribute to this trend:
- Holiday Season: The busy holiday season and colder weather can deter both sellers and buyers.
- School Year:...
Ultimate Guide to Sell Your Twin Cities Home
Are you considering selling your home in Minneapolis or St. Paul? The Twin Cities real estate market is unique, offering diverse opportunities for sellers, whether you're in bustling neighborhoods or serene suburbs. This guide provides essential tips and strategies to effectively sell your Twin Cities home, ensuring you navigate the market with confidence.
Understand the Twin Cities Real Estate Market
The first step in selling your home is understanding the Twin Cities real estate market. The market trends in Minneapolis might differ slightly from those in St. Paul, with varying demand levels, property values, and buyer preferences. Stay informed about local real estate trends, including average home prices, days on market, and inventory levels. This knowledge will help you price your home competitively and market it effectively.
Prepare Your Home for Sale
Preparing your home for sale is crucial to attract potential buyers and secure the best possible offer. Consider making necessary repairs and upgrades that will enhance your home's appeal. Staging your home, both inside and out, can also make a significant difference. Professional staging highlights your home's strengths, making it more inviting to prospective buyers.
Marketing Your Home
To sell your Twin Cities home quickly and for the best price, effective marketing is key. High-quality photos and virtual tours can showcase your home's best features. Utilize online platforms, social media, and traditional marketing methods to reach a broad audience. Highlighting the unique aspects of your home and neighborhood, such as nearby parks, schools, and amenities, can also attract more interest.
Pricing Strategy
Setting the right price for your Twin Cities home is a delicate...
The 5 Day Plan to Prepare you Home for Sale
With April just around the corner, our thoughts turn to spring. For many, spring not only signals the onset of warm weather, flowers, and birdsong but heralds the time to sweep out the winter detritus from hearth and home, otherwise known as Spring Cleaning. The first logical step in the process is removing all that stuff you really don’t want, don’t need, or never use, your clutter.
For those of you preparing to sell your home this spring, an absolute must for you is to take your cluttered chaos and turn it into organized harmony , but even if you are staying put, what better way to start the new season than with a home free of extra stuff to get in the way of your feng shui. Now that you are sold on the idea of paring down and organizing, there are a couple ways to approach the process of organizing your home.
- the intense weekend (or two) decluttering boot camp
- the series of multiple shorter de-junking sessions
Personally, since I am not a fan of pain and suffering, I prefer the “take-it-in-smaller-bites” process. Keep in mind, regardless of whether you opt for the intense program or the low impact version, you still need to perform the same tasks which are:
- throwing out what is broken, expired, or otherwise useless
- donating or selling what is in good, workable condition but is no longer wanted, needed or loved
- organizing what is left in a clean space
...
Selling homes in Winter
You just landed your dream job in Minnesota, and while you are over the moon at the prospect, you are not so happy about selling your home in the slowest season of the year for real estate, winter. While there are many aspects involving a significant lifestyle change that you can obsess over, don't allow listing your house to be among them.
Winter home sales in Minnesota
Real estate is not a seasonal business. People buy and sell homes fifty-two weeks a year because life doesn't come to a halt when the temperatures drop and snow flies. All the aspects that necessitate a need to relocate, be it cross country or across town, do not happen exclusively in the year's warmer months. Both advantages and disadvantages are inherent in listing a home for sale in all four seasons. One factor remains constant; presenting your home in its best light will result in quicker deals and higher prices.
When Selling in the winter, accentuate the positive home features
Does your home have features that shine in the winter months? Be sure your potential buyers know about them. Examples include:
- High-efficiency furnaces
- Newer energy-efficient windows and doors
- Extra insulation
- Solar thermal systems
- Radiant floors in bathrooms
- Four season sunrooms
- A heated garage
- Heated walkways and driveway to eliminate ice and snow
Tips for Minnesota winter open houses and buyer tours
- Turn on your gas or electric fireplace. Remember, anything that makes your home warm and welcoming is an excellent asset in winter.
- Brew a pot of tea and set it out with a platter of cookies. Simmer spices such as cinnamon and cloves with orange peels in a small pot in the kitchen.
- Open the curtains. Turn on the lamps. Let as much light in as possible. Even bright and sunny homes can appear dark in the winter.
- Play some soothing...
Use Hygge to Sell Your House
Did you know that Sperling’s Best Places named Minneapolis the third best city for hygge in America? Now you do. Don’t get me wrong; we are not turning our nose up at the third-place award to Seattle #1 and Portland #2. However, some of us think with more people of Scandinavian heritage in the Twin Cities and colder winters, we should be #1 when it comes to getting our hygge mojo working.
What does hygge even mean, and how do you pronounce it?
By now, you have probably at least heard the term hygge. It is a Danish concept that has created a considerable buzz in the home décor market. But it is not just about decorating; it’s a lifestyle. It is a concept of embracing simple pleasures. The Danes, being awesome people, created hygge in the 18 century, and it remains an integral part of their culture today.
The word is pronounced “hue-gah.” Frequently defined as coziness, and in the Oxford English Dictionary as “to keep or make oneself snug.” So hygge also reflects a feeling of safeness and warmth. The critical thing to note is that even with long winters and limited hours of daylight, Danes are considered the world’s happiest people. Since you want buyers to be the most satisfied people when they tour your home, let’s hit them with some hygge.
Soft, Warm, Snug Cozy
Hygge decorating is about texture. Soft materials that provide warmth and comfort are essential. Aspects of this decorating style that you can pull together in staging your home for winter are knits, fur or velvet pillows, soft fuzzy throws of soft merino wool or cashmere, and fluffy rugs. Hygge is about color too. Whites and soft greys are perfect wall colors. White woodwork or natural light woods are perfect compliments. The color scheme should be neutral and mix grays, browns, white, and black. Warm wood furnishings fit in perfectly with this décor style as well. Other aspects of hygge include candles,...
Staging for The Holidays
Let’s face it, selling your home over the Christmas Holiday can be a challenge. It goes over, and above the usual inconveniences you must endure and the compromises to the rhythm of your family’s routine you must make when you sell. For most, it happens to be the busiest time of the year regarding shopping, family activities, and entertaining. A string of strangers looking in all your nooks and crannies is not at the top of your wish list.
Many sellers temporarily take their home off the market in December while others wait until January to list. However, there are buyers out there, and most of them that are house shopping in December are serious buyers. So for those sellers with a high level of motivation, the holidays can provide a unique opportunity for your home to shine. You can also get a step ahead of the competition who decide to fast forward to January.
Once you decide to market your home when bells on bobtails ring, the next question is should you decorate and if so what are the rules? Here, the basic rules of staging your home for any season apply. Keep everything clean, eliminate clutter and avoid the personal items in your choice of holiday decorations.
Now let’s drill down to the details. Here are my best tips for home sellers who want to rock their holiday décor.
Keep the Holiday Decorations Simple
If you want a genuinely minimal look when you stage your home for the holiday consider subtle touches such as a beautiful bowl filled with pinecones, a vase filled with holly branches, and an evergreen wreath over the mantle or in a large window.
Avoid Clutter and Over Decorating
You may love your Christmas village homes and antique Santa collection. This year keep them in storage. Give a light touch to the decorations and keep them generic and understated. You want people looking at your home, not at your collectibles. Limit your holiday décor to the...
Sell Your Home When The Time Is Right For You
It’s no surprise that many people advocate that the best time to sell a home is in the Spring. Part of the reason this theory has evolved is that families want to be established in their new homes by the beginning of the school year in September. While this does make sense for families with children, when it comes to when to put your home on the market there are no one-size fits all scenarios.
Even though Spring may be considered prime time for home sales by many in the industry, there is no perfect time for everyone. Every situation is different, and when you are personally ready to sell, that becomes the best season for you. However, there is one piece of home-selling wisdom that is always true no matter what time of year you sell.
Can you guess that one sliver of home-selling wisdom? It’s the preparation of your home to look its best in winter, spring, summer or fall. Making an outstanding first impression on buyers will determine how quickly you sell and how high a price you obtain. A home that is move-in ready will face a cleaner offer with fewer if any contingencies. Even in this strong seller’s market, we find ourselves in right now, the condition and appearance of your home do matter.
It makes the most sense to take the time to get your home in tip-top shape for the fussiest of fussy buyers. If you think your house is nearly market ready and only needs some decluttering and a deep cleaning that’s great. If on the other hand, you are a homeowner that knows your family nest could use some feathering, here is a quick list to get you started on your project.
The Kitchen – Deal Maker or Deal Breaker
Updated kitchens are right at the top of the list for potential home buyers. A new kitchen can make your home irresistible. If you have an older kitchen, does that mean you should forge ahead and replace it with a $40,000 renovation? It depends on the value of your home. For...
Twin Cities Buyers Know What They Don't Want
The one thing most sellers have in common is that they are unable to look at their property with a dispassionate and critical eye. The longer they have lived in their home, the more emotionally attached they become. Many simply cannot understand that the cracked tile in the foyer they have lived with for 10 years, should be of concern to a buyer. Or the magenta bedroom walls they adore would be another person’s decor nightmare.
After being a realtor in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro for 16 years and closing on close to 1000 properties, I have shown my share of homes that made buyers run for the exit shouting, “next please”! I have been the listing agent challenged with marketing the lime green home with hot pink trim. So over the years, I have probably not heard it all, but enough to tell you what makes a buyer look like he just sucked a lemon. Sellers can and should take matters into their own hands before they put their home up for sale to avoid having their home sit on the market for a long time and sell for less money.
Big Ticket Replacement Items
A house with a roof that is at the end of its lifespan or siding that needs to be updated is a major red flag for buyers. The same holds true for old electrical systems with fuse boxes and ancient plumbing. If an Octopus furnace, the monster in the basement also known as a gravity furnace, with asbestos wrapping around the ducts lives in the basement that will generally have buyers looking for the door quickly.
It would be in the seller’s best interest to address major issues such as these beforehand, but if the circumstances make that impossible, there can always be a credit back to the buyer at closing to take care of the replacements, although that solution may end up costing the seller more in the long run.
Location Challenges
Here is that location, location real estate thing...
October Twin Cities Housing Market
As we approach the end of the year, it appears that the Twin Cities housing market story for 2017 is pretty much repeating the theme of strong and persistent demand for housing with an ever-shrinking supply of homes to buy below $500,000. We shouldn’t be surprised at the continuation of this trend when we look at interest rates and our local economy.
The 30-year mortgage interest rate dipped from 4.3% to 3.9%, an amazing bargain when you consider the long-term average rate is 8%. While nationally the unemployment rate is 4.1, in our own Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro it is 2.9, the third lowest metro unemployment rate in the country. Our thriving economy is diverse and vibrant, our workforce talented, our schools first-rate and with a robust arts community and 4-season recreation options makes our quality of life second to none. It’s no wonder we have one of the highest homeownership scores in the nation.
As we take a closer look at the statistics for October this year versus last year, we find new listings increased 3.1% although inventory of homes available fell a whopping 18%. This puts the month's supply of inventory at 2.2 which is 18.5% lower than last year. An undeterred 4994 buyers closed on a home last month, up 0.3% and pending sales were also up 3.9% from same time last year. Homes sold faster for more money, selling on an average of 52 days compared to 61 while the median sale price rose by 6.1% to $244,000.
Minneapolis-St. Paul Housing Market Year to Date
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Preparing your home to sell
It is critical that you choose a Realtor that will tell you all of things you should do to prepare your home to sell. If you hire a good real estate agent and follow their advice, tips and tricks, you will sell your home for top dollar. Before you put your house up for sale, you need to deep clean, de-clutter and depersonalize it. When you are getting your home ready to sell, these are the basics and the best place to start. We want to make your property look as much like a new house as possible. Our goal is to project a warm and inviting environment, as clean, spacious, and impersonal as we can so that potential buyers can visualize your house as their home, with their furniture in the living room, their art on the walls and their car in the garage.
Home selling preparation step 1
This can often be the most difficult step for some sellers because often they have an emotional attachment to everything in their house. However, you really need to get rid of the clutter because one thing I know for sure, a buyer's dream house does not include your clutter! It will help you to look at this process objectively and realize that your beloved napkin collection filling up a shelf of the linen closet is clutter from a buyer's perspective. Remember, the buyer is purchasing your house not your stuff, and you want him or her to visualize where they can put their stuff!
Preparing your home to sell step 2
The best way to tackle the task of purging is to separate everything into 3 categories, toss, donate, and keep. Go room to room, basement to attic and toss all items that are broken, no longer working, or in a condition too poor to donate. Next, items in good condition but you no longer want or need you can donate. What is left is all that you want to keep. At this point, whatever you don’t need for day to day living or will not be used to stage your home you can pack ready for when you move to your new home. Rather than...
That All Important First Impression
It’s well established that a first introduction is vitally important. That initial handshake can either lead to a meeting of the minds, or to no deal. “I hope I make a bad first impression,” said no one ever! In real estate, we see this play out again and again.
When you are selling, the first personal impression when a buyer tours your home is like the handshake. If they don’t like what they see pulling up to the curb, walking into the lobby, or opening the front door, the cash register is going to ring up “no sale”.
Although a good first impression of your home may not always end up in making a deal, it is always the first step into getting to that important offer to purchase. Here are 10 ways to make a great first impression on prospective buyers.
1. Get Buyers To See Your Home
Today, most real estate transactions are born on the internet. The first interaction a prospective buyer has with your house is online. If there is no connection with them in those first photos, it’s extremely unlikely to go to the next step with a private showing. Make sure you have an agent that takes quality photos of your property, preferably professional ones.
2. Remove Clutter, Organize and Depersonalize
Removing Clutter and organizing is critically important. A well-organized home without clutter and disarray allows buyers to see there is enough room for themselves and all their stuff. One reason people look for a new home is they have outgrown the one they currently reside in so if they think for even one second your home is not spacious enough or lacks storage they will move on. Remove personal photos and memorabilia as well. You want your prospective buyer to think of this as their home, not yours so please remove that urn containing Rover’s ashes off the mantel.
3. Clean Until Your Home Sparkles in the Sun...
The 5 Reasons Twin Cities Home Sellers Should List Now
Even though March is still very much a winter month in the Twin Cities, we had a few days of spring-like weather in February. Those days may have been a teaser but I will tell what is no joke – the spring home buying season started in January! Buyers are eagerly snatching up properties with wild abandon. If you are planning to sell your house this year, the earlier in the year you get your house on the market, the better. This phenomenal seller's market is not going to last forever but right now it’s all about you and the question on my mind today is, what are you waiting for?
1. Tenacious Buyers Will Not Be Here Forever
To say there are many eager buyers in the market watching the posting of new listings with a keen eye is an understatement. Many have not just been anticipating home ownership for weeks, a great number of buyers have been looking for months. With so much competition for so little inventory, a large number of these buyers have attempted to secure a deal on a home only to lose out to another eager buyer. They are not giving up anytime soon but market conditions such as rising interest rates may force them out. This sense of urgency is inspiring them to make great offers, very often above list price while making few demands.
2. The Anticipated Rise in Interest Rates Could Knockout A Sellers' Market
The market experienced an unanticipated spike in mortgage interest rates at the end of last year immediately following the presidential election. Right now they...
Twin Cities Housing Market Statistics November 2016
Here we are almost at year’s end and wrapping up on the Twin Cities Housing Market that tells one consistent story. It’s about fewer and fewer homes for sale spending a shorter time on the market and selling for higher prices. A market that favors the seller has been the dominant theme throughout this year. A deeper dive into the numbers for November give us a clear picture of the market trend.
Prices of homes continue on an upward trajectory with a 5.8% increase in the median sales price over last year. Closed sales topped out at a 25.2% increase and inventory dropped a whopping 22.8%. Due to volatility in financial markets responding to the results of the presidential election, the long awaited increase in interest rates happened before the expected Fed increase of last week, which boosted the mortgage interest rate in the Twin Cities to 4.25% with the expectation that rates will continue their upward climb in 2017.
While employment numbers and job creation have remained strong since August 2015, the long-term indicators of what effect the new administration will have on the housing market remain someone cloudy. With a raise in rates, we might very likely see a decrease in first time home buyers that will be able to purchase a home, which may result in a more balanced market in the coming year.
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