Tis the Season to be Selling

Ready or not the holidays are coming and your home is still on the market. What, if anything, should you do differently during the holiday season if you are trying to sell your home?

Many Realtors agree that selling your home during the holidays is a difficult task, but there are ways to make the sale more likely and less daunting. Despite the advice you may have heard, the consensus is that there is no need to take your home off the market until January – in fact buyers out in November and December are often very committed to making a purchase.

For starters, understand that everyone's religious preferences are different; therefore, everyone celebrates the season in a different way. The key is to make your home inviting and sparkly without offending anyone. The best way to go about this is to light the fireplace and put on some non-holiday music. Everyone loves the coziness of a fire, and some good tunes, but not everyone wants to hear about Christ's birth.

A lit fireplace and efficient lighting is an absolute necessity in the winter month's as buyers may be touring your home in the dark, after all, the days are getting shorter. Blankets on the end of every bed or draped on the back of a couch or in a reading nook enhances the cozy look of the home drawing people in.

No doubt by now you are wondering about holiday decorations. Do they stay or do they go? According to Realtor.com twenty-seven percent think some seasonal decorations are okay, but a home decked to the fullest extent makes it hard for the potential buyer to actually see the size of the rooms and visualize their own things in the room- something that is needed to successfully sell. This same group also feels the decorations should be non-holiday specific. Although taking down a Christmas tree at each showing would clearly be impossible, taking the menorah out of the window would be less daunting. Likewise, the Nativity that sits in front of the lighted fireplace would be easy to store for a few hours.

One thing we do know about buyers – they love the smell of apple pie baking or hot mulled cider simmering on the stove. A pinecone centerpiece will also help to add cheer, without offending anyone. Holidays are a terrific time to entertain so  make sure to play up all of the aspects of your home that would make yours the entertainment place to be. If you have an enormous dining table, set it complete with centerpieces and serving dishes to give people a sense of how large the space. A tall skinny Christmas tree is also a great way to showcase the cathedral ceilings in the great room.

Buyers who are actively looking during the holidays usually have a reason to be doing so – they are usually very committed buyers and ready to make a decision. For some, this is the last chance for an investment before the calendar year ends, for others it may be the perfect time to relocate the kids before the second quarter of most schools begins.

So deck the halls simply, simmer the cider, bake some cookies, light the fire, and be prepared to sell if a buyer comes knocking.