Should You List Your Home Now?

I’m sharing why winter is a great time to sell your home, and why waiting may not be your best option.

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Today we’re going to discuss whether now is a good time to list your home. Around this time of year, we often see many people taking their houses off the market. Many sellers believe they should skip the winter and wait until springtime to sell their property.

While there are some advantages to the spring market, people seem to be forgetting one thing: There’s much more competition in the spring. Through the winter months, there are fewer homes on the market because everyone is waiting for spring. As a result, buyers during the winter are serious, have a real need to move, and are working with fewer options to choose from. This puts your listing in a wonderful position!

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You need to look at the reasons behind why you’re selling, where you’re moving to, and why.

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If you can’t decide whether to list now or wait until the spring, you need to look at the reasons behind why you’re selling, where you’re moving to, and why. If you genuinely need to sell in the winter, there’s no reason to cause yourself more trouble by waiting until spring. You can still find a buyer in the winter months.

If you’re considering selling your home during the winter, know this: Last year we sold over 200 properties during this season. We have an aggressive marketing plan and we work harder this time of year for our clients.

If you have any questions about buying or selling in the winter, or anything concerning real estate, give us a call or send us an email. We would love to help you.

11 Reasons to List During the Holidays

Most homeowners think the holidays are a bad time to list their homes for sale. Here's why that's untrue.

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Here are the 11 reasons why you should consider selling your home during the holiday season:

1. People who are looking for a home during the holidays are more serious buyers.

2. Serious buyers have fewer houses to choose from during the holidays. Less competition means more money for you.

3. There will be less demand for your home come January, which means less money.

4. Houses show better when decorated for the holidays.

5. Buyers are more emotional during the holidays, which means they are more likely to pay your price.

6. Buyers have more time to look for a home during the holidays than they do during the workweek.

7. Some people must buy before the end of the year for tax reasons.

8. January is traditionally the month where employees begin their new jobs. Since transferees can not wait until the spring to buy, you must be on the market now to capture their attention.

9. You can still be on the market, but restrict showings during the major holidays so as to not miss quality time with family.

10. You can sell for more money, and we can get you a delayed closing so you don’t have to move until early next year.

11. By selling now, you may have the opportunity to become a non-contingent buyer in the spring market. When more houses are on the market for less money, it will allow you to sell high and buy low.

If you have any questions for us about this list or about real estate in general, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

What’s the Best Way to Make Sure Your Listing Is Seen?

Our team uses a variety of aggressive marketing strategies to ensure our clients find buyers. Here are just a few of them.

Looking to buy a Home in Northeast Ohio? Search all Northeast Ohio homes for sale. Selling Your Home in Northeast Ohio? Use our home evaluation tool.

Today, let’s talk about how to aggressively market your home.

First, why is it important to be aggressive when it comes to marketing your home? Most homes that sell for high prices typically sell in the first 30 days, so it’s very important that you market the property to increase the amount of traffic onto your property within that time in order to bolster your chance of getting the highest price.

The more homebuyers who come to look at your home, the better your chances are of getting a good offer quickly, meaning more money for you.

Here are some tips and tricks we at the Michael Kaim Team use to promote properties:

1. Internet. Today, 90% of all buyers start their search online before even getting out to look at properties. Make sure that your home is exposed on all the major sites as a featured listing. Getting featured-listing status is easy with our team because we sign up as a Zillow premier agent, and our listings stick out like a sore thumb. Websites like Zillow, Trulia, Homes.com, and Realtor.com are our top four sites that will expose your home right at the beginning of your listing period.

2. Professional photography. When you list the property for sale, you’ll want to make sure that the house is staged properly so that it looks great in photographs, which also ties back into maintaining a strong online presence.

3. Direct mailing and print advertisements. We have ads in every major news publication, so we’ll capture all the buyers who don’t search online. Additionally, we send out “just-listed” postcards to your area, which would tell your neighbors that the house is for sale. We can also post signs in your front yard to alert passers-by.

4. Email blasts. We can send out emails to not only the top producers in the industry, but also to our database of 20,000 buyers and sellers that we have registered on our site.

Between all of these marketing tools, we’re sure to find you prospective buyers. If you have any questions, you can always reach me by phone or email. Make it a great day!

3 Tips for Selling Your Home This Fall

If you want to improve your odds at a successful home sale this fall, I have three tips to share with you.

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Fall is officially here, so here are three tips that will improve your home’s saleability during this season:

1. Enhance your curb appeal. Make sure you’ve cleaned all the leaves from your yard, your yard is cut, and you display pumpkins and mums on your front porch to give it a nice, inviting look.

As the weather gets colder, you want to make your home warm and inviting.

2. Go easy on the gore. Halloween is right around the corner, but you have to avoid the temptation of decorating your house blood, guts, and skeletons. You want your house to look inviting, and any potential turnoff to a buyer isn’t recommended. Stick with the safe decor.

3. Make your home inviting. As the weather gets colder, you want to make your home warm and inviting. Add plush throw blankets on the couches and chairs and other fall decorations to the furnishings. You can also set out vases with fall foliage in them or bowls with seasonal fruit. Lastly, add fall scents like cinnamon or pumpkin spice to create a more powerful connection with buyers.

If you have any questions about how to make your home more sellable during the fall, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to help you.

Should You Buy Before You Sell?

If it makes sense for you to buy another home before selling your current one, here are a few tips to make the process easier.

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Should you buy a new home before selling your current one? The answer can depend on a few different factors, so here are some tips you can follow to help guide your decision and make the process easier.

First, talk to your lender to see if you can afford to purchase another property before selling your current one. If that’s the case and you feel comfortable with the numbers, feel free to make an offer on the property you want.

If you need to get the equity out of your current home in order to purchase your next home, it makes sense to list your current property right away and then make an offer on the next property after you’ve received an offer on the first one.

Talk to your lender to see if you can afford to buy before you sell.

You can also make an offer on a property that’s contingent on the sale of your first house and then list that house for sale. I don’t recommend this option, though, and there are three reasons why.

First, most sellers won’t even consider a contingent offer if you haven’t listed your property yet. Second, most agents urge sellers not to accept contingent offers because they don’t want to wait for another offer to come in and have to mark their listing as “contingent” instead of “active” and possibly lose out on a large number of buyers. Third, you risk having your offer turned down as soon as a non-contingent offer comes in.

If you have any questions about this or any other real estate topic, don’t hesitate to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’d be glad to help you.

Sell Your Home Fast Using These 5 Tips

Today I want to go over five great tips that will help you sell your home faster.

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When selling your home, you want to make sure you sell quickly and for the most money. I’ll go over five tips that will help you do just that.

1. Update your landscaping. Curb appeal is crucial. When we take exterior photos, which is the main presentation that we have online, you want to make sure the beds are clean and the landscaping looks good in order to attract the greatest amount of buyers.

2. Move out of the house or make it appear as though you’re moved out. Declutter and rent a storage facility to store all of your belongings. Buyers want to be able to picture their own things in a home, which is much easier when your things aren’t there.

If you don’t have neutral colors, have the house painted to make it look fresh.

3. Add fresh paint or flooring as needed. If you don’t have neutral colors, have the house painted to make it look fresh. If your carpet is old, replace it.

4. Utilize professional photos and video. These are the best ways to attract buyers and get them to want to see a home in person.

5. Price your home to sell. Make sure you are staying competitive with your neighbors or even offering a better deal.

If you have questions about selling your home or if you have any other real estate questions, please feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

Why Now Is Such a Great Time to Sell Your House

Now is an outstanding time to sell your house. These are the top three reasons why.

Looking to buy a Home in Northeast Ohio? Search all Northeast Ohio homes for sale. Selling Your Home in Northeast Ohio? Use our home evaluation tool.

There are three big reasons why now is a great time to sell your house here in northeast Ohio.

1. Consumer confidence: The election's finally over, and we're seeing record stock prices and a lot of homebuyers flooding the market.

2. Interest rates are on the rise: After the recent rise, people are flocking to the market to buy a home before rates go up again. By the end of the year, rates are anticipated to go up quite a bit more, so even more buyers will want to lock in a low interest rate on their mortgage before this happens.

Homebuyers are flooding the market to
buy before rates go up again.

3. Inventory is extremely low: A ton of houses came off the market in the winter, and now I see a lot of houses listed again this year. Many of these sellers are pricing their homes to sell, meaning you can get as good of a deal or better than you could have last year.

If you're considering selling your property this year, give me a call or send me an email soon before these favorable conditions expire. I look forward to hearing from you!

It is a Great Time to Sell in Ohio and get More Money for your Home

Should I Put My Home Up For Sale?

A lot of clients here in Northeast Ohio have been asking me lately if it's a good idea to put their homes on the market. I actually have 4 reasons why it is a fantastic time to sell your home.

1. Low Inventory: This is the lowest inventory that we've seen in years. With such a high demand for homes, you will be able to dictate what you want for your home, and you will likely receive multiple offers that will drive up the sales price of your home.
2. Home Prices will Rise: Home values have increased by 10% in the last few years, and are expected to keep climbing. In Cleveland, some homes appreciated by 3-5% last year.
3. Interest Rates Remain Low: Interest rates are at historical lows right now. You can get a rate below 5% right now, and this could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the life of a mortgage. If you're a seller this will help you too because buyers will be spurred to action by the predictions of rising interest at the beginning of next year. 
4. Spring Rush: If you list now, you will be swarmed by buyers because this is the time of year that people look to buy homes. Plus the low inventory will funnel buyers right to your property, and you should be able to sell for top dollar. 

These are my four reasons why you should sell, and I hope you've found them helpful. The thing to remember is that time is beginning to run out, so if you want to sell, do it soon to make sure that you beat the spring rush.

Be sure to contact me if you ever need help with real estate in Northeast Ohio.

Have a great day!