You wake up one morning and you realize it’s time to sell your home.  You may have been there for five years or fifty but, for any number of reasons, it’s time to sell.

When do you do it?  When is it really the best time to sell your home for the maximum benefit — high price and quickly.

The easy answer to that question is: now.

If you want or need to sell your home to move on to the next chapter of your life, waiting doesn’t help. Home prices continue to feel downward pressure and mortgage interest rates are super low so they can attract new borrowers (home buyers). That combination of affordable home prices and mortgage interest rates should attract a buyer interested in purchasing your home.  I say should because money is still tight.  You really need to be platinum to get a mortgage nowadays and there is the wild card of the home appraisal which seems beyond anyone’s control.

Waiting for Something That May Never Come

The reason I usually hear from people who want to sell their home (but don’t put it on the market) is that they think the market may “turn around” or home prices in their area are poised to rise. Reading between the lines, what this really means is that home sellers really want the very most money for their house that they can get.  Seems like  a reasonable request.

The unfortunate reality, though, is that the market really doesn’t care what an individual home owner may want or need. The market trends are a combination of other homes that have sold in the neighborhood, the number of short sales and foreclosures, interest rates, employment, schools, transportation and dozens of other factors that go into a home buyer’s decision to offer a certain price for any single home.

The other part of timing is that some people think that a certain time of year will bring out more buyers and, thus, a bigger chance of attracting one that will buy their house for the price they like.  Of course, so many people buy into this theory that there are also lots of houses that go on the market in the Spring so that there are proportionately more houses for all those “new” buyers to choose from.  It really doesn’t work they way it should.

The Quick Sale

The surest way to a quick sale is to price your home aggressively and to keep it in pristine condition.  There are a lot of homes out there and, to be honest, a lot of them look like hell.  It’s a given that the short sales and foreclosures are going to be trashed. But, even homes where the home owner has equity and can afford to sell their home, there is plenty of room to make the home look nicer.

Usually the home looks great for the first week or two.  People make the bed, keep the dishes cleaned and put away. They pick up after themselves. They vacuum and dust.

But if the house doesn’t sell right away (usually because of the price point and poor marketing), the sellers start to get a little more relaxed. They fall back into the habits of living like they always live.

Maybe there’s a pile of dirty clothes near the washing machine. Magazines and newspapers and books are kinda tossed here and there. The bathroom might need a quick cleanup. Dishes in the sink. Yes, it’s true. Most people do not live like Martha Stewart is a house guest. The house starts to get the “lived in” look, again.

Yet, with a competitive price and excellent staging your house can sell quickly even in the dead of winter. Two recent examples in College Park sold very quickly — on in 8 days and another in 18 days. This was no accident. The sellers knew what needed to be done and did it. One of them has also been waiting for a year for the “market to turn around” only to see the price of their home decline.

So, when you decide it’s time to sell your house, it’s time.  Now. Not six months from now when prices are lower or there are more buyers and more houses in the market competing against your house. Now.