The Best Season To Sell Your House?

Winter might not be the best season to sell your home.

If it has snowed recently and may continue to do so in the future, you might be disappointed by the lack of guests during an open house.

You might even lose a potential buyer because of this.

Put yourself in the shoes of a visitor: they may not want to walk through your front yard if it is covered with snow. They will also consider the less appealing parts of owning the home like shovelling snow or dealing with a slippery driveway.

Winter months are attractive to some people, but many buyers will stop seeing open houses come late November because of the weather. Homebuyers having to spend time getting warm after going from house to house because of the weather means that they won't be in the best mood to walk through the house and evaluate its true fair market value.

The first impression that your house makes is an important factor when it comes to selling the property. After the holidays though, things might be different.

With family obligations out of the way, people start to plan out their coming year and sales activity starts to pick up.

Late winter may not be the busiest season but it still has a few buyers looking at houses. This can drive competition for either house sellers or buyers, it depends on the market you find yourself in.

The best thing you can do is get in touch with an agent to find out if it would be worth putting your house for sale - maybe this winter could coincide with a seller's market where you can get a better deal because of less competition from other sellers.

Fall is the worst time to sell your house.

Everyone's preparing for winter. Family obligations, preparing for the holiday season, shopping for presents, the start of a new school year - it's the worst time for people to move. In that scenario, fewer people are likely to make a real estate purchase for a new residence.

Typically, most people plan ahead for the coming seasons and because of that, Fall is a season with fewer buyers. Not many buyers and potentially more housing supply for people that cannot wait to sell means less money and bargaining power for sellers.

Housing prices will be lower too as a result, meaning that of all the seasons, Fall is the worst time when it comes to home sales - for sellers. Of course, market activity is very localized, the real estate market is fickle and depending on your location, selling decisions can be different.

You also have to consider the snowbird effect. This is what happens when people move to warmer climates when it starts to get cold. In Canada, that means that a chunk of the people with the money to spend on a new home are not even in the country.

When the demand is low, it means more competition among the ones providing the supply and that typically means missing out on the best potential home buyers.

Summer is very location-dependent.

Remember the snowbirds? When they come back from inclement weather, it becomes the best time for them to seek out a new home. But these people coming back won't be searching for a home somewhere cold.

In Canada, the summer months look wildly different from Nunavut to British Columbia. Seasonal changes may be more drastic in one region or another. The early summer is the time where a lot of realtors are closing out the busiest season for their business.

Make no mistake, real estate seasonality doesn't mean that the market stops at any point but summer is always a huge question mark. Of all the seasons, it is the one where the real estate market varies the most based on each local market.

As a home seller, don't expect to have amazing offers but do talk to a real estate agent to find out the state of the housing market around your neighbourhood.

More free time doesn't always mean that people are willing to purchase a property though. The weather may be good for moving, with less snow and cold making it easiest to pack and travel, but the timing may be off.

If you want to sell your home during the summer, you have to take into account the time it would take for listed properties to become sold properties. If the sale drags on for too long, you might find yourself in a tight spot in the fall when school is starting again.

This is also what other buyers will be thinking of before they buy your home. A buyer may just as well resort to waiting for another time.

In the summer, both supply and demand are higher than in the fall or winter but the spikes from either side make the housing market volatile.

Spring is the best time to sell your house.

Now, after everything laid out against the winter months, the busy season that comes with the new school year, and the unpredictability of the summer, let's talk about spring.

Spring is often the busiest time for realtors because more buyers are making their plans overall compared to other times of the year.

The reflection and planning of people bundling up at home during the colder months come to fruition and they make plans to move out when the school year is over so that they can begin their new lives before the new academic year begins and can comfortably settle into their new house for the fall and the end-of-year holidays.

The spring season really is a season of change where supply and demand meet on a more equal footing.

Selling in the spring or late spring also allows you to field multiple offers over a longer period if needed.

No need to rush an open house because of the cold or the start of the school year, and that also means no need to reduce the price you're asking to move out quickly to move in time before the end of the warmer months.

Consider other factors.

However, the real estate market is complicated. Home sales are not solely reliant on the time of the year. Location, as always, is supremely important, more houses in an area mean lower prices, interest in a neighbourhood can mean a high selling price even in the winter.

Does your city see heavy rainfall in the spring and your yard looks gorgeous in the fall? Then the decision might be easier to make. This is just a simple example, and though you can gauge how easy or not it would be to sell your home for a decent price, there is no one that knows the real estate market better than a real estate agent.

They know how to avoid homes sold at a loss because of considering just one aspect of the market. For example, they may look at upcoming construction projects that will raise the value of your home and advise you to wait to sell or find ways to make a sale work quicker than you were expecting so that you can put down a deposit on a great deal you saw for your new dream home.

Keep in mind that you should not be selling your home at a certain time to avoid showing some of its critical flaws.

A discerning buyer will be more likely to make an offer if the insulation is fixed, and would be ready to meet the price you demand if they feel confident about the house's viability throughout the seasons.

Not to mention that you could be sued for material latent defects if you hid issues like bad waterproofing that couldn't be examined with a reasonable home inspection.

Selling your home is not just a matter of picking the best season, there is a lot preparing involved. Then again, finishing up those preparations in time for the spring, or a season that works better in your situation, can help you capitalize on the best possible timing.

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