How to Know the Time is Right to Sell Your House

When is the right time to sell your property? This is a question that home sellers often have, but rarely think about too much. Because the right time to sell your property is when you decide to do so, right? Wrong – there are a myriad of factors that come into play, which may affect your decision about when to sell your property.

This article will take a detailed look at what may influence your decision to sell at a certain point in time and, together with your real estate agent, you might want to keep them in mind before listing your property among the many competitors that are vying for buyers’ attention.

1. Look At Your Finances

Home sellers should not make the mistake of thinking that they needn’t have any cash available prior to the sale of a property. Selling a home always comes with some type of financial requirement on the seller’s part, and there are a number of extra costs associated with the sale of a home that the seller might not have considered before.

When selling your home with the help of a real estate agent, for example, this will necessarily come with associated fees charged by the real estate agent and the agency they are employed by. Home sellers should be prepared to pay a percentage of commission to the real estate agent after the sale of the property has gone through. Different real estate agencies and agents have different types of commission structures that may be either fixed or tiered.

When interviewing potential candidates to act as your real estate agent, remember to enquire about their commission, and keep in mind that commission is something that may be negotiated with a real estate agent before taking them on board.

In addition, selling a home very often comes with a number of extra costs that you may not have thought about when deciding to sell your property. Like any type of sale, selling a home does require the seller having to cover some costs. Clearly communicate all the financial expectations you have to your real estate agent when initially discussing the sale with them. This not only ensures that you are both on the same page with regards to what type of profit you are looking to make on the sale of your property, but also allows room for your agent to tell you whether your expectations are reasonable as far as they pertain to the property market conditions at play within your city or suburb.

2. Life Changes

What are the factors that prompted you to sell your property in the first place? Perhaps you are looking to move to a different city, town or suburb. Maybe you are selling the property because something else has caught your eye. Whatever the reason for deciding to sell your property, life changes often have a hand in a person’s decision to sell.

Indeed, everyone has their own specific reason for putting their house on the market. When meeting with your real estate agent, disclose your reasons for selling when giving your agent a run-down of the timeframe you have in mind for the sale to be completed. When your agent understands your reason for selling, and the life changes or circumstances that brought about the decision to sell, they can more accurately give advice as to what would be the best marketing approach to take.

Should you want or have to sell your property quickly, that will also affect the renovations and repairs an agent recommends before putting the house on the market.

3. Are You Looking to Upgrade or Downsize?

Changes in personal circumstances often see sellers deciding to upgrade from the property they currently have (in the case of a young family that is expanding, for example) or downsizing to a property that is smaller (when the kids move out or when people reach retirement age).

This is an important factor to keep in mind when discussing the sale of your current property with your real estate agent. Upgrading to a larger home will require some extra capital to cover the costs, and will mean that you’ll need to make some significant profit on the property you are currently living in. On the other hand, downsizing to a property that is smaller might leave you with extra cash on your hands that can be used to cover other costs associated with the transfer of your current property, or undertake upgrades to the new home you will be occupying.

Of course, the size of the property is not the only determining factor in establishing an asking price for the home you are putting on sale. Your real estate agent will take absolutely everything into consideration when suggesting a fair price to ask for your home, and the size and features of the property are just some of the aspects that will be taken into account.

Bigger homes do not always fetch higher prices. Even if the property is colossal, it will be difficult to sell if it is not located in a suburb or city that is sought after. Similarly, smaller properties that are in prime locations may fetch prices that are much higher than their more prodigious counterparts in areas that are not as popular.  

4. Consider Seasonal Changes in Real Estate

Real estate folklore dictates that property is more likely to sell when the weather starts turning warmer, while sales tend to slump in the colder months of the year. However, seasonal changes in real estate go beyond something as obvious as the rite of spring.

To a certain extent, the housing market may definitely be as changeable as the weather, but aside from actual changes in temperature, the Australian housing market is also always in a state of flux, with changes perhaps being just as difficult to predict as the weather.

Unless you have observed your local housing market for the past few years, it’d be difficult for Joe Public to try and accurately make predictions about what the market is like at any given time. A buyer’s market suggests that it might not be a good time to sell if you are looking to fetch the best price, but if you are in dire need of selling your property for whatever reason, it makes no sense to ride the wave until the market changes again.

Consult with your real estate agent about how seasonal changes in the housing market might affect you and the sale of your property – they have years of experience within this whirlwind to make good predictions on the outcome of a sale.

5. Understand other Housing Market Factors

The housing market as a whole is influenced by a great many factors. Chiefly, these include things like demographics (including income, migration patterns, population growth and age, among quite a few others), interest rates, the country’s economy and government policies or subsidies.

The long and short is that a sluggish economy breeds a struggling housing market, and that real estate’s role as one of the great global wealth creators cannot be thought of as separate from other economic factors affecting a country.

Not all of us are economists, though, and when it comes to the factors affecting the housing market, your real estate agent is, once again, your go-to person for advice on the current housing market climate and how it will affect the potential sale of your property.

6. Are You Prepared to Put Your Home on the Market?

Any good real estate agent will tell you that a home is not simply put on the housing market the moment people decide to sell. Rather, some preparation before figuratively and then literally throwing the doors open for potential buyers can pay off when your property is sold at a price that you are satisfied with.

Preparations prior to putting your house on the market may include minor (or major – your real estate agent will be able to give sound advice here) repairs and renovations, a thorough clean up and de-clutter, and the staging of the home.

Potential buyers need to envision themselves in the space, or they won’t want to put down money to make it theirs. Preparation that facilitates this process is invaluable to home sellers.

7. Do You Have Enough Equity in Your Home?

Every property possesses a certain amount of equity. This term refers to the current agreed value of the home. To put it simply, the equity of a three-bedroom home that is valued at $700,000, of which the current mortgage balance is $500,000 holds equity of $200,000.

The equity of your home has a number of benefits for home sellers. Among other things, a home seller might decide to sell their property and use the equity to buy another property or purchase an investment property.

Having enough equity in your home can also fund renovation projects prior to putting your home on the market. Ask your real estate agent how the available equity of your home can affect the profit you make on the sale of your home.

Conclusion

The right time to sell your house differs from seller to seller. Various aspects may influence a decision to sell, among them seller’s personal financial situation, their circumstances and life changes that they are experiencing, deciding to upgrade or downsize their current property, and seasonal changes within the housing industry, together with housing market factors at large.

The amount of equity a property holds can also influence a decision to sell, as can the readiness of the property to be put on the market.

Having a good real estate agent to help you sell takes the guesswork out of deciding whether it is a good time to sell your property. Perfect Agent’s extensive database of real estate agents is a treasure trove of expertise that makes the entire selling process a breeze.

Still wondering whether it’s a good time to sell? Let a qualified and experienced real estate agent, recommended by Perfect Agent, give you timely advice that will reap financial and personal rewards for years.