If you wanted to sell but thought you "missed" the market read on!
If you wanted to sell but thought you "missed" the market this could be the perfect time for you.
The demand is back and sellers are seeing multiple offers & overbidding!
After we slogged through 2022 it was unclear what was going to happen in 2023. Many were predicting that the market was going to be soft and demand low due to high rates but that has not turned out to be true in Northern Virginia. In January the market picked up almost overnight. I went from writing low offers, asking for all sorts of concessions, to writing an offer last week that escalated 50k over the ask price and waived almost everything-but there were 11 offers and ours just didn’t waive enough. It was exhausting from my buyers who decided to rent for another year.
The good news from the first 2 months of 2023 is that if you wanted to sell during the pandemic and missed the boat for whatever reason, your ship has come back to the harbor! Pending home sales in Northern Virginia increased 14% in January from the previous month, the first time that has happened in eight months, according to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors This is a great indicator of how a seller can do in 2023.
Why are you not selling your home right now? Do you need to declutter? Do updates? Or make repairs? Do you not know where you want to go? Is your home paid off and you are afraid of a new mortgage at today’s rates? These are valid fears I hear all the time from sellers. The question may need to be asked: what can you do with an extra $50k-$100k from the sale of your home. Could that money help make your life easier? Or help with a downpayment on a different home? How about helping to pay for a grand vacation you’ve always wanted to take? It may just be a matter of thinking about selling differently. Instead of a huge burden but as a lucrative gift.
The biggest upside to selling right now is that you will get more money. The median sold price in Northern Virginia rose 6.8% from January 2022. Low inventory & high demand are the perfect equation for a seller.The market still may fizzle out in the coming years depending on the economy and you don’t want to regret not selling while the market was good.
The best approach to selling this year is hiring a professional to get you organized and your home moving in the right direction to prepare it for the market. I help my sellers with painters, donations, estate sales, handyman jobs, flooring replacement and I always offer a free staging consultation to all my sellers so we can determine if we are using a hybrid of the homeowners furniture or removing everything and using all staging furniture. Plus we can get paint color tips and other suggestions for our home prep. After all, staging a home can bring a seller up to 5% or more for their home than a similar unstaged home.
Another factor when pricing your home for sale is strategically pricing a little below what you think the market value of the home is right now. This feels a little risky but enables more people to see the home, the market to drive the pricing and leaves room for people to escalate their pricing and terms to make them more competitive.
The bottom line is you can sell right now, make more money than you probably thought and even though there may be some objections or obstacles in your way if you work through them and prepare yourself & your home for sale you will be successful. Get in touch with me so we can discuss your next steps!
