It’s the Holidays: Should you have your Albuquerque home on the market this season?
(Transcript Snippet): “Tego:
You know, should I sell my home now? I mean, is this, should I have my market, my home on the market, through the holidays? And what, you know, what does that look like if I have my home on the market through the holiday?
Tracy:
So that was our question of the week. Should I have my house on the market during November, December the holiday season? And obviously we always say, well, what’s going on that you want to sell your house? First of all, right. Second of all, it’s actually a really good time to have your home on the market because there’s limited inventory, less homes competing for the buyers, which creates more demand for your home. But people say, you know, we’ve got Thanksgiving, we’ve got, um, Kwanzaa, we’ve got Hanukkah, we’ve got Christmas. And then it’s new year’s right. So there’s lots of holidays coming up. So as a home seller, you know, how you celebrate those things and how you decorate for them or how you entertain, could make a difference for you. However, I would say, if you need to sell your house or you’re thinking of selling it now to March or something, yes, let’s get it on the market.
Tracy:
And, um, you’ll your home, uh, get it marketed to, to the market and sell it. You know, the, the time of year with buyers, we still have a lot of buyers. Like I said, a minute ago, we’re still seeing multiple offers on homes for sale. Um, we’re still seeing very strong offers. So if you can handle your home being on the market during the holiday season, yes. I would say let’s put it on the market. Um, the other thing about having your home on the market during the holidays is a lot of times people have time off work. They don’t normally have right now. I know I’ve seen it personally with a few very close friends. They have unused time off vacation time, paid time off with their employers that they have to use up by the end of the year. And they’re struggling right now to find days to take off.
Tracy:
But in addition, you know, usually people have more time off work over these next few holidays. And so they have time to go look at houses. So it’s, it’s good as realtors for us. I know I was telling you to go a few years ago on the Eve of Thanksgiving, we had about 15 people scheduled to be actually, it’s more like 18 people scheduled to be at our house for a Thanksgiving meal around noon on Thanksgiving. And all day, the day before Thanksgiving, I was out showing houses instead of prepping my house and the food, because I kind of liked to cook. So I don’t let people bring a whole lot to the Thanksgiving table.
Tego:
It goes back to the whole, uh, careers in real estate conversation. But yeah, anyway,
Tracy:
In any event, holidays can get really busy because people do have time off work to go and take a look.
Tego:
You know, the takeaway is if you, you know, Ben thinking about selling your home and the timing right for you, meaning like, okay, this is a good time of year for me to get it on the market and move on to whatever the next thing is that you’ve got going there. There’s really no reason not to have it on the market during the holidays. Yeah.
Tracy:
Right. Another question that came in this week, um, with the market being strong for home sellers, should I spend time and energy staging my home for sale? And of course you should, you know, you still want to net the most when you’re selling your home and making it as a new home model home-like, as you can refreshing, it is going to net you the most. So putting a little bit of money into your home, or a little bit of time into your home to stage it, whether you hire a stager to come in and help you rearrange what you already have, or if your house is vacant, staging it with some furniture to make it feel comfortable and, and people want to be there. Um, spending a little bit of money can net you quite a bit. Usually
Tego:
I think the takeaway is that, you know, putting the house show, ready, market, ready, merchandising the house in any market, be it a buyer’s market, a seller’s market, whatever you’re, you’re always going to net more. Now we’re not talking about doing major remodels. We’re just making your home, you know, feel like a show home, like a model home you’re going to attract more buyers. The buyers are going to love it that much more. You know, you’re going to, you know, doing deferred maintenance is always part of that as well. Making sure you take care of all those little things that you’ve ignored over the years, I’m guilty. You know, I’m not pointing fingers here. I’m just, just like all of us, right? We have those things that we just kind of let go in our house. But when you take care of all those little things, clean it up declutter and, and potentially, uh, move furniture or bring furniture in. It makes a big,
Tracy:
So one of the things I love Tigo is getting a third party professional staging type person in the home to look at it and not just us as realtors, right. But, uh, somebody who does staging for a living, somebody got that interior design. I, you know, we get used to how our house looks and that punch list that you and I have for our house could be completely different when we get that stager in to give us our punch list of what they think to make our house more appealing. So we certainly have resources for that. We’d be happy to help you with it and get the,
Tego:
And the cost actually is, you know, people I think are afraid of the cost and the cost is actually a, I mean, there’s been minimal, a bunch of studies done on it that, that you always are gonna, you know, get that plus more, whatever the cost
Tracy:
We have a couple, um, people who will do a consult and just come in and tell you what they see and smell and feel and what things you should do to refresh your home for a hundred or less or 200 or less to come in and give you that information. That can be really helpful. I know for us, if we were putting our house on the market, that’d be one of my first calls to go because you and I, we live there.
Tego:
Right. Right. Of course,
Tracy:
Of course. And it’s, we might know that this outlet doesn’t work or something, but they’re going to look overall at the biggest aesthetics and tell us if your house has an odor that you should take care of, because really all the different senses when somebody walks in your house, they’re pretty important.
Tego:
And just one last thing on that is a pre-inspection is always a good idea as well, get a professional home inspector licensed. They are licensed in New Mexico now, professional home inspector to come in and just kind of give you the punch list of little things that might come up when you do get it under contract and have that, that home inspection done
Tracy:
A good, good conversation for us to have as your realtor, because there are some homes where we might not suggest a home inspection first, you might not want to have that punch list and all of those things, because you might want to sell your house as is with no repairs and you want the buyer to do their own due diligence and put their own concerns together. Um, so let’s talk about,
Tego:
That’s a good point. I think it’s like so many other things is the answer is it depends. Right? So get a professional that, you know, to talk to you about it.