Listing Your Home in Winter---A Few Things to Keep in Mind
Although Central Maryland seems to have skipped the Christmas weekend snow, there will probably be more. For sellers that have their house on the market these are great tips from Chris Cleland in Virginia to make the home more inviting and safe and attractive to buyers.
Listing your home for sale in winter can be a great time to attract serious buyers, especially in the Western Prince William County, VA real estate market. We tend to see increase in average market value near the end of the year. Logic tells us that the fewer homes on the market, with buyers still in the hunt for a home, mean prices will increase a bit. It never fails.
If you are planning to list your Bristow, Gainesville or Haymarket home during the winter, there are some things you should keep in mind.
1. Winterize your hose bibs. This one goes for home owners in cold winter climates whether they are selling or not. I was the victim of a hose bib freeze during the winter. The plumbing cracked and began to leak inside a wall in the
spring. Oops! That's a mistake my household will never make again.
2. Shovel and de-ice your walkways and driveways during snow storms. You wouldn't want the perfect buyer for your home to fall and bust their rear before they ever made it inside your home. You also want to make sure they have a place to park. If they can't even get out of the car, that's just as bad.
3. Keep your home WARM. Nothing says welcome home like coming in from the ice cold weather outside and being greeted with warm air. When your home is on the market, winter is not the time to be miserly with the temperature.
If your home will be vacant, make sure you have contracted with a local landscaping company to handle yoru snow removal and de-icing. And make sure you've left on the utilities. The winter marketplace has been going full speed. Follow these tips, in addition to the others you'd normally follow in spring (minus planting flowers and mowing the lawn) and you'lll be under contract in no time.
Chris Ann Cleland, Associate Broker- Licensed in Virginia, GRI, SFR, Northern Virginia Short Sale Specialist. Affiliated with Long & Foster, 7526 Limestone Drive, Gainesville, VA 20155. To contact Chris Ann, call 703-402-0037 or email chrisann@LNF.com. Or you can visit her website: www.nvarealestate.net.
Header photo is the Bristow, VA community of Bramear, taken by Chris Ann Cleland during the blizzards of 2009-2010.
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