As if the holidays weren’t stressful enough, adding selling your home to the list of gifts to buy and foods to cook and family to see can seem like the final straw. However, there are a few advantages to selling your home at this time of year, such as more serious buyers and less actively-marketed competition.
With these holiday home-selling tips, putting your home on the market during the holiday season doesn’t have to be a super-stressful experience.
1. Rock the Curb Appeal
Unless you live nestled into palm trees and perpetually warm weather, you’re probably experiencing that beautiful time of year when the leaves change from green to gold and there’s a little snap to the air that smells of the coming cold… And this year you can’t help but lament that your grass isn’t a beautiful spring green anymore and the trees in the front yard have dutifully dumped those golden fall leaves into your meticulous flower bed and now you can kind of see where the paint is peeling on that one spot on the side of the house.
Without summer’s natural lush beauty (and natural cover of foliage), your house has to bring its own curb appeal. This means raking up those pesky leaves, clearing walkways of ice and snow, and yes, painting that spot on the side of your house that’s usually covered by leaves.
Another tip to keep in mind is decoration. How have your neighbors lit their homes and the surrounding trees? A little unity in decoration can show neighborliness.
2. Interior Decoration: Proceed with Caution
While we’re on the subject of decoration, let’s talk about interior holiday cheer. The exterior of your house has to look good — but what’s inside might be even more important. It’s the holiday season, so you probably want to decorate. Bring out the tree, the menorah, the garland, those tacky Christmas pictures you and your siblings took at Mom’s house last year…
But before you start pulling out the decorations to blanket your house in fake snow, colored lights, and homemade mantle stockings, you should carefully consider the appearance these decorations will give your home, and the subsequent message they’ll send to potential buyers. Keep these tips and suggestions in mind:
- Decorating isn’t necessary, but it does send a nice, homey vibe and can help potential buyers to visualize themselves in their new home.
- Don’t overdo the decor. Send a message of holiday cheer but don’t come off as amateur.
- Keep the decor impersonal. That means stash the homemade ornaments, the goofy family photos, anything that, yes, makes it yours. You want the buyer to be able to visualize their home in your house.
- Declutter. Take the you out of your home. Your house should be clean, nice, impersonal, ready to be implanted with the buyer’s vision of home.
3. Make Your Home a Winter Escape
The weather outside might be frightful, so make sure your home is delightful.
Keep it warm. Open those blinds to let in the natural light. Play some soft classical music to set a mood. If you’ve got a fireplace and someone to watch it, light a fire. Offer homemade holiday treats. And do some sensory staging. The holidays smell like ciders, pumpkin pie, cinnamon, and cookies.
Don’t overdo it, but it doesn’t hurt to make your buyer feel welcome and cozy.
4. Sell Your Home in Pictures
You did all this work to make your home beautiful and welcoming — but the cold truth is that, well, it’s cold. Buyers are more likely to shop online for homes, at least until they’ve found one they really like. So sell your house in pictures first. Have some professional photos taken to paint a beautiful picture of your home.
Create a video tour to post online (ex: Facebook) as well to really give buyers a good idea of what they’re seeing.
Holiday Home Selling Made Easy
Keep all these tips in mind to make selling your home during the holidays as stress-free and painless as possible. Selling during the holidays doesn’t have to be a hassle!
Buying and Selling in Erie
Whether you’re buying or selling a home during the holidays or not, Marsha Marsh Real Estate is here to help! We offer easy ways to search available homes and learn more about specific areas.
Ready to find your dream home today? Pick of our professional REALTORS here
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