Selling a house can be daunting. Finding exactly the right time of year to sell your home can be even more challenging.
Luckily, despite realtors’ arguments that the best time of year to sell your house is in the warmer months, it’s possible to make any season work to your advantage.
The trick is to know how to make the season work in your favor. So, the same way you would research the real estate market before listing your home, it helps to investigate what benefits come with selling your house in the fall and how to get it off the market quickly.
Is It a Good Time to Sell Your House in the Fall?
Any time you can engage potential buyers in a house sale is an excellent time to sell your house. While warmer weather might make for a higher number of sales, selling your home in the fall has its advantages.
The biggest of these is that you’re more likely to get the asking price if you sell your home in the fall since the market is smaller. But the likelihood of homebuyers and a quick sale aren’t the only things about fall that work in your favor.
It’s also a bright, colorful season. With a bit of careful decoration and garden maintenance, you’ll create the kind of warm and welcoming environment that people look for in a new home.
Tips for Selling Your House in the Fall
Typically, most homebuyers go looking for houses in spring or summer. But don’t let that stop you from selling your Maine home in the fall.
Whether you’re selling your house as-is, for a cash offer, or through the traditional real estate market, there are various tips to help you sell your home quickly in the fall.
Heat Your Home
Since an autumn house sale means cooler weather, realtors recommend you turn the heating on to create a warm, inviting atmosphere. You want strong positive associations between house and homebuyer, and the immediate respite from fall weather is an excellent way to do this.
Another way to inspire warm thoughts of house sales in potential buyers is through fires. This is especially true of wood-burning fires but applies to gas, too. However, summer is a favorite nesting time for birds and rodents, especially in the forgotten crevices of your chimney. So, take time to call a chimney sweep and clear the flue before lighting your first fall fire.
Clean the Windows
Selling your house in the fall is all about showing your home at its best. As the days shorten, a lot of those advantages include catching the light.
Summer storms bring detritus and smudge the glass, and even self-cleaning windows may struggle to recover. Pay special attention to removing any bugs and dust.
But, if you still have trouble finding a home buyer, we buy houses in Auburn and throughout Maine. If you’re located further south, you can find cash home buyers in Portland who will help speed up your sale.
Spotlight Rooms with Indoor Lighting
As the days shorten, you can’t rely on natural light. And if you choose to sell your home through a realtor, it’s worth knowing that open houses may last well past an autumn sunset.
With that in mind, make sure all your lights and lightbulbs are in working order. Keep those lights on throughout the showing to stop your house from feeling gloomy, even after dark.
Remember, as long as you’re showing off your home by the cozy light of day, you’re also showing off any clutter you have in the house. So, when you’re removing burnt-out lightbulbs, take time out to thoroughly declutter and clean up, too.
Smells of Baking
This idea is an old house seller’s trick but a good one. We talked earlier about creating a warm, inviting atmosphere, and combining the coziness of a well-heated house with baking is the perfect way to do that.
Tempting smells of baking, apple cider, or spices are guaranteed to help you sell your Maine house fast in the fall.
Make the Most of a Colorful Season
Fall is a notoriously colorful time of year, especially in Maine. If you’re trying to sell your Main house in the fall, that’s something you can take advantage of.
One tip for selling your house in the fall is to photograph your house as the leaves turn. For a fast fall sale, you want to do your home justice, and that means using images that are colorful and clear of debris.
A colorful, clean yard is always eye-catching and can help generate interest from potential home buyers.
Wreathes and pumpkins are another ideal way for homebuyers to capitalize on an autumn home sale. Even if your trees have lost their leaves or frost sets in, these can add warmth and fall color to your landscape.
That said, there’s no reason to limit autumnal color to the garden. Effectively selling your home in the fall is all about creating a warm, inviting atmosphere that contrasts the crisp, cool days that come with the season.
One way to do that is by incorporating fall colors into your home. What’s more, there’s no need for professional staging to add these touches. Consider the following:
- Gourd centerpieces
- Pinecones
- Fall-themed or colored throws/throw pillows
- Candles in autumn colors
All of these add a touch of seasonal warmth and elegance to your Maine home, encouraging homebuyers to make an offer.
Start Marketing Your House Before Fall
But while fall colors can work to your advantage when landscaping or decorating, realtors recommend you start marketing your house sooner rather than later. That means using photos of spring and summer to illustrate your listing.
Peak house-hunting seasons are spring and summer, so there’s naturally less competition in the fall. That being the case, when you’re trying to sell your home in Maine in the fall, you want it to look its best.
Colors aside, the fall comes with browning lawns and stark, bare trees. Neither of these shows your home at its best. Instead, to increase your home’s value, you need to market your Maine house using pictures of lush, green lawns, and leafy trees.
This visualization has the added advantage of helping serious buyers envision the house in warmer weather. If you’re lucky, despite the end-of-year house market, you may still end up with a bidding war.
Increasing Your Curb Appeal
Curb appeal is another way to persuade buyers that the house you’re selling could be their new home.
When you’re landscaping for autumn, ensure you don’t neglect the curb. Clean up any leaves in the surrounding area, and use seasonal flowers and pumpkins to help make your home’s exterior more attractive.
However, we advise against Halloween decorations. They’re fun, but they detract from the combination of neat, clean, and inviting that you want to create to draw in buyers.
Pros and Cons of Selling Your House in the Fall
Like any other time of year, there are advantages and disadvantages to selling your house in the fall season.
The pros include:
- Less Competition: If you’re selling a house in the fall, you’re more likely to be dealing with a seller’s market. That’s because not as many people want to sell their homes in the fall, despite the advantages. Consequently, you may not only receive the asking price for your home in Maine, but if enough buyers get interested, it could lead to a bidding war.
- Serious Buyers: The other advantage of selling your home in the fall is that you’re more likely to receive offers from serious buyers. As the weather cools, people are less likely to wander into an open house if they aren’t considering buying. Additionally, no one wants to negotiate a move in the snow, so there’s increased pressure on homebuyers to get their offer in before the end of the year.
- Faster Sales: Because more people choose to sell their houses earlier in the year, you might sell your house in Maine faster if you sell it in the fall. This quick timeline may be especially accurate if you are considering companies that buy houses in Maine, accept cash offers, or sell through the real estate market.
While the cons include:
- Fewer Buyers: Although fewer houses are for sale, there are also fewer potential buyers than there are earlier in the year. So, while those buyers you draw might help you close a deal quickly, you may have to wait longer to receive an offer than if you sold your home in warmer weather.
- Landscaping Debris: Fall months are full of color, but that’s only an advantage while the leaves stay on the trees. If you decide to sell your home in the fall, you need to clean up your yard scrupulously to keep it looking at its best. This may take time and effort you don’t feel you have.
Conclusion
While warmer weather has its advantages when selling a house, fall is still an excellent time of year to consider a house sale.
As long as you make the most of the fall season’s colors, create a warm, inviting house interior, and take advantage of as much light as you can, we think you’ll soon have your fall sale closed.