1. Less Competition
If your sellers are worried about listing during the winter, they’re not alone. Many people worry that listing their home in the winter months won’t be worth it. In other words, they fear that they won’t have many buyers scheduling showings and won’t attract adequate turnout at open houses.
You can reassure sellers by letting them know that there are always people looking for desirable homes regardless of the season. Even more importantly, if your clients’ house is one of the few on the market during November, it can work to their advantage. Remind them that when inventory is low, their home may have an easier time catching the eye of prospective buyers. Plus, shorter days and wintry weather have no effect on Internet searches. So if buyers are looking online, fewer listings means less searching to find your sellers’ homes. Lower inventory can sometimes speed up the home sale.
2. Motivated Buyers
Chances are if buyers are out home shopping in November, they’ve got a pretty good reason. Perhaps their search is triggered by a timely life event, such as a recent job relocation or maybe they simply didn’t have free time until the fall to really start looking. Regardless of the reason, if buyers are looking in November they are truly motivated. Their motivation may be price-driven, too.
Buyers sometimes postpone their search until after the busy season to find a motivated seller who has realistically priced the home to sell. In spring and summer months, sellers run the risk of attracting not-so-serious buyers. These so-called “tire-kickers,” tend to come out of the woodwork when the weather is nicer, more out of curiosity than real desire to purchase a home. So in some ways, fall is really prime time for truly serious buyers.
