List Today? Or Wait Till Jan or Spring? Debate!

I don't know why folks try to delay listing a home.  What's another month on the market.  DOM are running 3-4 months anyway.

Seems to me that in a falling market, one would want to get listed as quickly as possible.  For one thing, buyers out in the market in December are serious serious buyers. 

What are they waiting for?  The Spring rush????  What if they wait until Spring and there's no rush????

What ever you do, if it doesn't sell quickly, it will be your fault.

Frank, that's a regional question, I think....In South Florida, our season starts around January, so we sure want sellers to get going by Jan. at the latest.    (especially this year!)   Pat

 

I've run several studies that compare the number of closings per month as a percentage of the over all market.  Dec is the lowest, but Jan and Feb aren't that far behind it.  The next problem you may have isn't really about the dollars, but more about the traffic.  We have a great traffic increase at the start of Dec, trails off after about a week, and starts up again after Christmas.  I don't think DOM will affect the price as much in the early part of the year.  Traffic now can result in a sale later, and with good pricing/comps the price should be fine. 

Frank, I for one say if you want to sell your house... list it now and don't delay. I have a couple of very serious buyers right now that oddly enough with the market being as bad as everyone says it is, you would think finding them the home they are looking for would be easy but it is not. I would love to see some new properties come on the market in our area fitting their criteria. I am currently working on contacting owners who have what we are looking for that I know have shown an interest in possibly selling later to get what we are needing for my buyers. Those holding on to their homes for spring are missing out on the benefit of the more serious buyers who are ready to buy now.

Frank- ahem...OK, I've collected my thoughts after Lenn's initial comment....Fully staged and ready to go?  List it now of course!  Anyone looking for a house in December is either dead on serious looking for a new home or scoping for Holiday gifts - if the property has been staged well, they'll not be finding many of the gifts laying about...

Jackie

I say list it now - you can not time this market.

What about a combination strategy...assuming the highest chance of selling is in the first few weeks (makes sense)...list for 6 months with a stipulation that 1 month is now (and advertise as such), then tempoff for a few months?

I would think that in any analysis you'd need to look at the chance that it wouldn't sell in the slower period, rather than just looking at those that did.  So the first question is not 'how much more will you get if it sells now' but rather 'what are the chances it WILL it sell now'.  

I'd love to also see the related question addressed--what if the listing is up for renewal TODAY after it's been on for 4 months already (let's assume it's priced competitively and/or the seller cannot go any lower)?  Would you pull it off and wait til January or even later?   e.g., PRO - more serious buyers in winter, CON - continues to increase DOM, etc.  Is the small chance of finding a buyer worth the risk of sitting til spring with a DOM that's twice as high? 

 

Good questions, Frank.  Looking forward to reading more about this.  

Frank,

I know that Arlington is different than Loudoun but we often see agents put into their new homes sales into MRIS at the end of the year and sometimes in January vs when they actually sold it which skews the prices...have you taken that into consideration? 

Wow, this is good stuff Frank.  I must tell you that I'm shocked at the results in terms of DOM being shorter - I would have put money on December being a better month than January.  The price does make sense because some people are eager to sell for tax reasons.