Reston Real Estate: Thinking of Selling in the Spring?

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. For a more complete picture of home sales in your neighborhood, contact her on Reston Real Estate.

Thinking of selling in the spring? The time to start getting ready is now.

I don’t typically hold to the notion that one time of year is better for selling your home verses another. For as long as I’ve been selling real estate I have always had at least one transaction around the holidays, but conventional wisdom says that there is something magical about spring. That being said, as of today there are 55 days until spring, and unless you are a contender for the Martha Stewart award for home organization, the time to start working on your house for a spring listing is now.

When a seller takes seriously the job of preparing their home it takes much, much longer than they imagine. It’s not at all uncommon for the sorting, purging, cleaning and painting to take up to 2 months.

So what kinds of things should you be doing to get your home ready?

• I recommend that you start with the closets. I think my agent collogues would agree that a closet that is half full sends a much better message than one that if stuffed to the gills. Most of us hold on to all kinds of stuff for no better reason than we have the room for it, so be ruthless.
• Pre-packing: For things that you really do want to keep but that you don’t need ready access to, go ahead and pack it up in anticipation of your move.
• Deep cleaning. I cannot stress to a seller how critical this is, clean it from the baseboards to the light switches to the light fixtures.
• Knock off the old “To-do” list. That old light fixture you’ve been meaning to replace since you bought the place — do it now!
• A competitive market demands that you make your place stand out from the crowd, so get a jump on it now.

The housing inventory continues to be painfully low with just 78 active listing and 6 in a “Coming Soon” status. That is just under 1 months’ worth of housing inventory. The good news in those numbers is that pretty much everything that comes on the market is going to get a lot of attention — if you’ve taken the time to get it ready and you’ve priced your property competitively you could very well find yourself in a multiple contract situation.

If you have questions about buying or selling don’t hesitate to contact me.