Selling A Home In Summer
There may be no better time to sell your home than in the summer months. Though spring is usually seen as one of the more brisk homebuying periods, for those selling a home in summer,there are great opportunities to be taken advantage of when the temperature rises.
Whether tax refunds have (finally) been processed, meaning homebuyers have access to capital, or inventory is low when compared to the amount of people buying — or simply the motivation of most homebuyers to lock in a property before school starts in the fall — summer home selling can be one of the most lucrative ventures of your financial life.
But this doesn’t mean one can simply rely on the power of real estate seasonality in the summer to do the heavy lifting or that listing a home in the so-called “best month to sell a home” will have offers rolling in from the get-go.
That’s because getting an offer when selling a home in summer is not the ultimate goal; getting an offer, at the best price possible, is.
To ensure your property gets discovered in a crowded, frantic — often profitable — market and to help you maximize top dollar for your home, here are three strategies to add to your home buyer to-do list.
1. Showcase The Exterior
There’s no question about it: sprucing up the exterior of a home can do wonders for both a property’s curb appeal, as well as its ability to attract home buyers. This is even more accurate during the busy summer selling season.
This is, essentially, for two reasons: One, the condition and presentation of a home’s exterior gives would-be homebuyers a snapshot of what the rest of the property is like. (Whether correct or not.) Two, summer is a time when outdoor living areas get their most use. Having a clearly-defined outdoor entertaining space can be a real boon to your selling efforts.
Here are a couple of tips to help you maximize the exterior of your house when showing it:
- Trim and manicure: Be sure to mow the lawn, trim the shrubs, and water the plants and lawn to give a vibrant, clean look. Also look at other outdoor areas, such as driveways and exterior doors, that might need a going-over to bring your exterior up to standard.
- Highlight outdoor living areas: Do you have an outdoor BBQ or pool or some kind of patio/deck on the premises? Stage them in a way that lets prospective homebuyers envision themselves making memories in this space.
- Add outdoor living area space: You may not have the time or budget for this, but if you do want to inject some profit potential into your property, adding something like a fire pit or revamped deck can often do wonders for your bottom line.
2. Keep Things Cool
With the sunshine and dry weather of summer also comes, depending on where you live, a fair amount of heat and humidity. It’s vitally important you keep your home as comfortable and inviting as possible for home buyers that come over for a viewing.
Often this means thinking about things from a home buyer perspective. What would make you comfortable if you had been traipsing around town all day, in the heat, looking at properties? A couple of things you might want to include:
- Keep the A/C running: Yes, air conditioning can run up the energy bill considerably, but when staging a property, it’s important to think about a return on your money and ensure your home is cool and comfortable. Will a couple hundred dollars spent now be worth thousands of dollars later in the form of an offer? That’s usually the case.
- But not too cold: You want your home to be cool and comfortable, not colder than the Arctic and having homebuyers reaching for the sweater. Find a middle ground and keep the thermostat set for a comfortable temperature.
- Have refreshments ready: A pitcher of iced tea and snacks isn’t just something for realtors to set out. As a seller having these “stand-bys” at the ready can make a great (and eventually lucrative) impression on homebuyers.
3. Price It Right
Many folks selling a home in summer believe, and rightfully so, that summer is a great time to sell a home. With many more buyers than the available inventory can support, they reason that listing their property with a high starting price (and wait for the negotiations to begin) is the best approach to selling a house.
Unfortunately, this ignores one of the cardinal rules of real estate: the longer a property sits on the market, the more buyers begin to “wonder” what’s wrong with it? Rightly or wrongly, buyers — and the agents that represent them — see listings that have been on the market for multiple months as flawed.
The key is to price your home right, from the beginning. (Your real estate agent can help you with this.) Don’t worry, in a competitive market — and with the right price — you’ll often get offers above the listing price. But this is impossible to do if you price yourself out of a market, from the beginning, in the hopes that you get that stratospheric amount you’ve been dreaming about.
Selling a home in summer can be one of the most satisfying, if not life-changing, things you can do. But it requires more than simply putting a “for sale” sign in the front yard and waiting for the offers to flood in.
It’s your job when selling your home in summer to ensure your property is clean, fresh, comfortable — and priced realistically — to ensure that home buyers can picture themselves living in your abode. Not focusing on what may or may not be wrong with your home.
Windermere Community Service Day
Since 1984, Windermere associates have dedicated a day of work to complete neighborhood improvement projects. You’ll find our teams doing a variety of projects, such as cleaning, landscaping, and painting at local senior citizens centers, facilities for homeless children and adults, public parks and schools, low-income housing, and emergency shelters, and volunteering at food banks, to name just a few.
This year Windermere Tower Properties gave back to a local food bank, Feeding America IE. Food banks in the Feeding America network are run by experts in the field – and they’re ready to bring you into the fold. The best part: Spending a few hours sorting, packing or stacking food can make an enormous difference for the food banks and the families they serve. Feeding America volunteers share their skills and make a huge impact. Every volunteer experience is a little different, for example food banks could need your help sorting and packing food, gardening, or educating the community. Each experience is critical in helping get healthy meals to families facing hunger. The Feeding America network is the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, working to connect people with food and end hunger. Donors, staff, and volunteers all play an important role in our efforts to end hunger in the United States.
Community Service Day is an important part of what makes Windermere the place it is, and we appreciate everything our agents do to make our communities a little better. After all, real estate is rooted in our communities, and an investment in our neighborhoods gives us all a better place to call home.
May and June are the Best Months to Sell Your Home!
According to a newly released study, by ATTOM Data Solutions, selling your home in the month of May will net you an average of 5.9% above estimated market value for your home.
For the study, ATTOM performed an “analysis of 14.7 million home sales from 2011 to 2017” and found the average seller premium achieved for each month of the year. Below is a breakdown by month:
ATTOM even went a step further and broke their results down by day.
Top 5 Days to Sell:
June 28th – 9.1% above market
February 15th – 9.0% above market
May 31st – 8.3% above market
May 29th – 8.2% above market
June 21st – 8.1% above market
It should come as no surprise that May and June dominate as the top months to sell and that 4 of the top 5 days to sell fall in those two months. The second quarter of the year (April, May, June) is referred to as the Spring Buyers Season, when competition is fierce to find a dream home, which often leads to bidding wars.
One caveat to mention though, is that when broken down by metro, ATTOM noticed that while warmer climates share in the overall trend, it turns out that they have different top months for sales. The best month to get the highest price in Miami, FL, for instance, was January, and Phoenix, AZ came in with November leading the charge. However, Southern California being the months on May and June!
If you’re thinking of selling your home this year, the time to list is NOW! According to the National Association of Realtors, homes sold in an average of just 30 days last month! If you list now, you’ll have a really good chance to sell in May or June, setting yourself up for getting the best price!
Contact a local real estate professional who can show you the market conditions in your area and get the most exposure to the buyers who are ready and willing to buy!
Information Source: Keeping Current Matters
West Coast Thunder 2018
We are honored to participate and invite our community to celebrate our fallen heroes, as we support Riverside National Cemetery. Each year upwards of 7,500 motorcyclists pack the streets of Riverside on a determined route past our flagship location on Indiana Avenue in Riverside to observe and participate in the tradition of honoring the fallen warriors of our country.
The annual West Coast Thunder motorcycle ride to Riverside National Cemetery starts with a pancake breakfast at 6 a.m. Riders will leave the Riverside Harley-Davidson about 9 a.m., stop at the cemetery’s ceremony and head to the Lake Perris Fairgrounds. Riverside National Cemetery is a resting place dedicated to United States Military personnel. When the Cemetery first opened, it was in a continuous building and expansion process. Eventually, with the influence of Riverside County becoming involved, the Department of Veteran Services created the support committee, thus further evolving to become their own organization – the Riverside National Cemetery Support Committee our affiliation is with Bill Chamberlain and Jamil Dada, both staunch supporters of Veteran Affairs in our region.
Family and Friends joined us in saluting our fallen heroes and supporting this great tradition. While providing coffee, breakfast treats and flags!
A special thank you to Heidi Carter and Patti Triplett who chaired this gathering and our affiliate’s participation.
The agents and staff at our three Riverside locations, wish to thank all the volunteers who work hard and dedicate their time and energy giving back.
Windermere Cares.
Top Reasons to Own Your Home
Family: Putting the needs of your immediate family & children first.
Privacy: Having your space that is solely your own.
Financial Investment: Chance to grow your asset & wealth.
Comfort: Surround yourself with items that enhance your life.
Community: Being part of a broader community of people and society.
Accomplish: Reflection of your efforts & success.
Provides Stability: Having control of your own future direction & security.
Personal Expression: Display your unique personality, desire & interests.
Family Day - Art Float Riverside
This year the Riverside Art Museum (in collaboration with the City of Riverside’s Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Department and the Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) hosted a signature community art event that involved hundreds of huge, floating, hand-painted spheres in Lake Evans at Fairmount Park. Called Art Float – Riverside, the project patterned after one staged a few years ago by Portraits of Hope in Los Angeles.
Windermere Tower Properties had the honor of sponsoring the Art Float Family Day in the Park which consisted of
- outdoor game of croquet, giant bowling, or hula hooping;
- Battle of the Drawings with artist and Division 9 Gallery owner Cosme Cordova;
- reflect and writing using nature-inspired prompts with Inlandia Institute;
- unique sculpture made out of found objects by Tios Tacos owner Martin Sanchez;
- musical performances coordinated by RUSD;
- learning about water conservation from the City of Riverside;
- saying hello to the City's Parks & Recreation Department;
- spinning the Windermere Tower Properties wheel at the sponsor table; and
- sitting in a Riverside Fire Truck and honk the horn and hear the siren
We were very excited to have been part of the largest community art exhibit in the history of Riverside and connect with hundreds of people in our community!
Thank you to those that came to our Family Day in the Park!
Buyers Are Out Now! Don't Wait to Sell your Home!
The concept of "Supply & Demand" reveals that the best price for an item is realized when the supply of that item is low and the demand for that item is high.
Let’s see how this applies to the current residential real estate market.
It is no secret that the supply of homes for sale has been far below the number needed to sustain a normal market for over a year at this point. A normal market requires six months of housing inventory to meet the demand. The latest report from NAR revealed that there is currently only a 3.6-month supply of houses on the market.
Supply is currently very low!
A report that was just released tells us that demand is very strong. The most recent Foot Traffic Report (which sheds light on the number of buyers who are actually out looking at homes) disclosed that “foot traffic grew 10.5 points to 52.4 in March as the new season approaches.”
Demand is currently very high!
Waiting to sell will only increase the competition between you and all of the other sellers putting their houses on the market later this summer. If you are debating whether or not to list your home, contact a local real estate professional who can explain the conditions in your market.
Information Source: Keeping Current Matters
Art Float Riverside
This Friday, May 11, 2018, 5 p.m. - 7:30 p.m., at Redwood Street Bridge, is the Launch Party of Art Float - Riverside!
Come for the 5:30 p.m. "ribbon-cutting" with Mayor Bailey and other dignitaries, and then take your complimentary wine glass on a wine-tasting, food-nibbling, music-filled walk while the sun sets on the Art Float spheres and creates a magical display.
$25/person (Sponsors of $1000 or greater to receive complimentary tickets.) Casual attire. Outside, in the evening, so please dress accordingly.
The Riverside Art Museum (RAM), in collaboration with the City of Riverside’s Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Department and the Riverside Unified School District (RUSD), will host a signature community art event that will involve hundreds of huge, floating, hand-painted spheres in Lake Evans at Fairmount Park. Called Art Float – Riverside, the project is patterned after one staged a few years ago by Portraits of Hope in Los Angeles. The Art Alliance of the Riverside Art Museum, the volunteer fundraising group of RAM, is spearheading the event that will take place May 11 - June 1, 2018. When complete, the floating artwork will feature over 350 hand-painted spheres that will float in Lake Evans for a three-week festival.
Each plastic sphere is six feet in diameter and will be brightly painted by schoolchildren at 48 RUSD schools. After being painted, the spheres will be launched in Lake Evans at Fairmount Park and will float as a huge piece of community art. During the time the spheres will be in the lake, there will be multiple events for the public to enjoy.
“This will be a signature event in Riverside,” says Lucile Arntzen, incoming RAM Board President. “It will allow everyone free access to a unique kind of community art.”
Art Float – Riverside chairwoman, Kathy Allavie, says that one of the unique aspects of the project is the involvement of thousands of schoolchildren throughout the city. Allavie, who also sits on the RUSD Board of Trustees, is excited to bring the art experience into the schools. “Our painting teams will be visiting each school and letting the children participate in the process,” says Allavie. “I know that when they see the spheres floating colorfully in the lake they will be thrilled to have had a hand in its creation.”
Art Float – Riverside is also a fundraiser for the museum. Allavie is hoping to have 350 spheres sponsored by community members for $350 each. After the event, the sponsors can keep the painted spheres or have them donated to a school, library, or community center. The money raised by the project will return to RAM’s mission-driven programs, including their award-winning art education program called Art-to-Go. Art-to-Go delivers art education directly to each classroom with age-appropriate projects and lessons given by qualified art instructors. RUSD has engaged the museum to deliver around 3,700 art classes in all their elementary schools, K-6th, this coming year.
Days On The Market Drops To New Low In April
According to recently released data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the median number of days that a home spent on the market hit a new low of 26 days in April, as 57% of homes were on the market for under a month.
NAR’s Chief Economist, Lawrence Yun, had this to say,
“What is available for sale is going under contract at a rapid pace. Since NAR began tracking this data in May 2011, the median days a listing was on the market was at an all-time low in April, and the share of homes sold in less than a month was at an all-time high.”
Strong buyer demand, a good economy, and a low inventory of new and existing homes for sale created the perfect storm to accelerate the time between listing and signing a contract.
The chart below shows the median days on the market from April 2017 to April 2018:
If you are a homeowner who is debating whether or not to list your home for sale, know that national market conditions are primed for a quick turnaround! Meet with a local real estate agent who can explain to you exactly what’s going on in your area, today!
Source: Keeping Current Matters
How Long Do Most Families Live In A House?
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) keeps historical data on many aspects of homeownership. One of their data points, which has changed dramatically, is the median tenure of a family in a home, meaning how long a family stays in a home prior to moving.
As the graph below shows, over the last twenty years (1985-2008), the median tenure averaged exactly six years. However, since 2014, that average is almost ten years – an increase of almost 50%.
Why the dramatic increase?
The reasons for this change are plentiful!
The fall in home prices during the housing crisis left many homeowners in a negative equity situation (where their home was worth less than the mortgage on the property). Also, the uncertainty of the economy made some homeowners much more fiscally conservative about making a move.
With home prices rising dramatically over the last several years, 95.3% of homes with a mortgage are now in a positive equity situation, according to CoreLogic.
With the economy coming back and wages starting to increase, many homeowners are in a much better financial situation than they were just a few short years ago.
One other reason for the increase was brought to light by NAR in their 2018 Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends Report
. According to the report,
“Sellers 37 years and younger stayed in their home for six years…”
These homeowners, who are either looking for more space to accommodate their growing families or for better school districts to do the same, are likely to move more often (compared to typical sellers who stayed in their homes for 10 years). The homeownership rate among young families, however, has still not caught up to previous generations, resulting in the jump we have seen in median tenure!
What does this mean for housing?
Many believe that a large portion of homeowners are not in a house that is best for their current family circumstance; they could be baby boomers living in an empty, four-bedroom colonial, or a millennial couple living in a one-bedroom condo planning to start a family.
These homeowners are ready to make a move, and since a lack of housing inventory is still a major challenge in the current housing market, this could be great news.