Summer officially arrived this month and the heat has already cranked up to confirm it!
If you’re thinking about selling a home during the summer, it’s extremely important to know what the top tips are. As Georgian Bay lifelong residents, we all know that the summer season can be painfully short here in southern Ontario, but it can be an awesome time to sell a home.
Summer is a fantastic time to sell your property, put yourself in the shoes of a potential buyer, would you prefer walking through piles of snow, or have to deal with some hot weather? Yup, we’ll take the hot Georgian Bay weather as well!
1. Prepare The Exterior Of The Home For The Summer
A couple of the most important areas to focus on when selling a home in any season is the exterior and the curb appeal. A home with poor or a neglected exterior will take longer to sell and likely will sell for less than it should.
When selling a home during the summer, it’s extremely important to prepare the exterior of the home. The exterior and curb appeal of a home can give a potential buyer a pretty good idea of what to expect in the interior of the home, so make sure it’s clean, crisp, and attractive.
Here’s some fixes for the exterior that you can undertake on a budget.
- Mow the lawn
- Water the lawn to avoid a burnt lawn
- Trim bushes and shrubs
- Water the plants to avoid dead plants
- Weed and mulch the flower beds
- Touch up any exterior peeling paint
- Paint and/or clean up the front door
- Seal the driveway
2. Highlight Outdoor Living Space
Since we’re discussing the exterior of a home, another excellent tip for selling a home during the summer is to focus on the outdoor living space. Summer is a fairly short season, so many buyers spend as much time outside enjoying the weather as possible during the summer.
Many buyers put a premium on a great outdoor living space so highlighting the outdoor space is a great way to impress potential buyers. One of the best staging tips is to help buyers envision themselves spending time relaxing outside.
If your home has an incredible outdoor BBQ or a large concrete patio, make sure it’s staged! Showcasing to a buyer how amazing a home’s outdoor living space is for entertaining friends and family will have buyers lining up with a purchase offer in hand.
3. Keep The Home Cool
One of the most important tips for selling a home during the summer is to make sure to keep the home cool, at least while the home is being looked at by potential buyers. If your home is not equipped with a central air conditioning unit, it’s still important to focus on keeping your home cool.
Alternative ways to keep a home cool without central air conditioning include installing window air conditioners, turning on ceiling fans, keeping lights off and blinds drawn prior to showings.
If your home is equipped with central AC, make sure it’s performing efficiently and has been serviced recently by a professional HVAC technician. One of the biggest reasons to have a home inspection is to ensure the home’s HVAC systems are working properly, so if a home’s central AC unit isn’t, it’s another potential red flag for a buyer.
4. Depersonalize & Declutter The Home
When selling a home during the summer, another simple but effective tip is to depersonalise and declutter the home. Home sellers who actually take action and follow this tip will give themselves an advantage over sellers who decide it’s not important.
A home that has personal effects all over the place, such as family portraits or a report card on the fridge, provides another opportunity for a buyer to be distracted from viewing the home. Some buyers get distracted easily and will be more interested in seeing what the owner’s family looks like rather than looking at the features of the home. Not only is depersonalising a home a way to avoid distracting a buyer but it’s also a great safety tip to follow when selling a home.
As for decluttering a home, regardless of the season, it’s highly recommended. When selling a home during the summer, take the time to walk through your home and evaluate what you actually need to live comfortably while selling your home. If you believe you can live without something while selling your home, consider moving it into a storage unit or into the basement or garage. Decluttering a home is one of the best tips for staging a home on a budget.
5. Strongly Consider Having A Pre-Listing Inspection
Before listing a home for sale during the summer, another great tip is to strongly consider a pre-listing home inspection. There are many benefits of a pre-listing home inspection, one of the most important being that it can reduce the chances of a buyer being scared away after completing their own inspection.
If you’re unsure whether a pre-listing inspection is a good idea or not, an experienced real estate agent can help you evaluate whether it would be money well spent or not – don’t hesitate to reach out, we have a team of experienced agents at For Sale On Georgian Bay. In the majority of cases, having a pre-listing inspection is well worth the cost because even newer built homes can have issues that the owner is not aware of.
6. Price The Home Right…From The Beginning!
Generally speaking, there are 2 major factors as to whether a home sells or not. The first major factor is that the home is getting enough exposure and being marketed correctly, which we will be taking care of for you. The other major factor is whether the price of the home is right or wrong.
An extremely important tip to keep in mind when selling a home during the summer is that the home must be priced right, from the beginning. One of the worst real estate pricing mistakes made is overpricing a home to leave room for negotiation. Pricing a home incorrectly, for whatever reason, often results in a seller actually taking less for their home than if they were to price it correctly from the start.
How is it possible that if a home is priced incorrectly that a seller will actually sell their home for less than if they were to price correctly from the beginning?
Simply, an overpriced home generally will sit on the market until the sellers decide to reduce the price to an acceptable market value, which sometimes can take several weeks or months. When a home sits on the market for an extended period of time, buyers begin to wonder if there is something wrong with the home, which typically results in them not making an offer or submitting a low ball offer.
How can you be sure that you’re pricing the home right, from the beginning?
There is also a simple solution to this question. Our experienced real estate professionals will provide a seller with a pricing recommendation, typically generated by completing a comparative market analysis, frequently referred to as a CMA. A CMA is an analysis of one home to other similar homes that have been sold within the past 6-12 months. An experienced agent will know how to make adjustments, both positive and negative, for features that the subject property may or may not have when comparing to the similar homes that have recently sold.
The bottom line of this important tip for selling a home during the summer is to make sure it’s priced correctly, from the beginning. There are very few (or zero) home sellers who want to leave money on the table because they overpriced their home.
7. Get Ready For Showings
This last tip for selling a home during the summer is certainly not the least in importance. A seller to this point has manoeuvred through the process of getting their home ready for the market, hiring a top For Sale On Georgian Bay agent, and pricing their home correctly, the last thing they want to do is not prepare their home for showings.
Home sellers are often not educated enough on how to prepare a home for showings when selling. A home that is not prepared for a showing can be spotted from a million miles away.
There are lots of great tips for preparing a home for showings when selling during the summer. Below are a few tips to consider while preparing a home for showings during a summer home sale.
- Put out a refreshing beverage for potential buyers, such as lemonade, iced tea, or cold water
- Turn on all lights
- Open blinds to let natural light in
- Set the thermostat to a comfortable temperature
- Clean up after your children and/or pets
Summertime is an excellent time to be selling a home, if the proper tips are followed. The above 7 tips for selling a home during the summer all will make a difference in respects to the amount a home sells for and the time it takes to sell.
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