To sell your home quickly and for the most amount of money, you need to get the timing right. You want to list your home when there are a lot of buyers looking for a home but not as many sellers out there to compete with.
We're coming up on that sweet spot. According to Realtor.com, the week of April 13 through April 19 will be the best time to sell your home.
"This is the optimal week to sell because of how you can capitalize on buyer demand without being drowned out by increased seller competition," says Hannah Jones, a senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com.
Realtor.com's research found that sellers who list during this time could sell their homes nine days faster and fetch around $4,800 more compared to the average.
To help sellers make the most of this week, we asked real estate agents from around the U.S. about what they think is the key to a successful home sale.
Price it right
All of the agents we talked to said that one of the most important things you can do when selling your home is price it appropriately.
"Price is key to a good listing," says Phil Sexton, a real estate agent with eXp Realty in Phoenix. "I think that there's a misnomer out there that the lower I price my home, the lower I'm going to sell it for. And I don't believe that."
Sexton says that sellers can generate more interest from buyers by pricing their homes close to the actual value.
Nicole Junker, an eXp Realty agent who works in the Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota area, says that depending on your market's dynamics, pricing your home a little lower could actually make it more attractive to potential buyers.
"There's still enough buyers out there where if it's slightly underpriced, we could get multiple offers," Junker says. "So there's very little risk in underpricing a home. There's a lot of risk if you overprice it."
Declutter and depersonalize
When you sell a home, you need to make it easy for buyers to be able to picture themselves in it. This means getting it clean and removing the stuff that makes it your house.
"COVID did us dirty, and everyone is over-occupying their home," says Dill Ward, an eXp Realty agent based in Portland, Oregon. "We all have way too much stuff."
Ward says that going through your belongings and getting rid of stuff you don't need can make a huge difference in making your home look more presentable. As a plus, it also makes moving easier.
In addition to decluttering, you'll want to present a more neutral space for buyers, Ward says.
"Obviously if you live in the house, you're going to have some stuff, but you don't need your entire DVD collection taking up the entire wall of the house to stay living there comfortably," she says.
Make strategic updates
Junker says that it doesn't necessarily take a bunch of effort or money to get your home sale-ready.
A fresh coat of paint can go a long way. Replacing flooring that's older or in poor condition can also help a house sell faster. And if you do nothing else, make sure your house is clean.
"Really that cleaning and decluttering, even if a home is dated, in my opinion, the cleaner it can be, the more appealing it will be," Junker says. "So even if you can't afford to do a significant amount of updates, just making sure that your house is super, super clean will go a really long way."
Talk to an agent sooner rather than later
You don't have to wait until you're ready to sell to have a real estate agent look at your home, Sexton says.
"I've met with people where we've talked about the work that needs to be done and then 18 months later they called us back and said, 'OK, now we're ready,'" he says.
An agent can help you use your time and money efficiently when preparing your home for sale.
"I think one of the biggest mistakes that sellers make is they charge ahead and they do things on their home that may not be necessary," Junker says. "So I would say meet with a Realtor early on, get their opinion on what projects you should and shouldn't do. I'm never going to tell a seller to do more to their home than what I think is absolutely necessary for them to sell."
Know your market
We hear a lot about nationwide real estate trends, but these things aren't really helpful when you're selling, since every market is different.
Jones of Realtor.com says that inventory has been increasing recently, but some regions have more than others.
"The South is seeing a lot of inventory," she says. "So sellers in the South might have to be a little bit more flexible in order to get attention on their listings, whereas in some of the more in-demand markets like the Midwest or in the Northeast, sellers may not have to make quite as many concessions because inventory levels are still really constrained there."
Working with an agent who's familiar with the city and even the neighborhood you're selling in can help ensure that you attract the most prospective buyers.
List now
"Early birds catch the worm," Ward says.
In her area, many sellers want to wait until later in the season when their yards look better. But when you wait, you'll be competing against more sellers. Those who list early tend to get more aggressive buyers and multiple offers, she says.
Junker agrees that now is a good time to sell compared to waiting until later in the season.
"If we're talking about listing now versus waiting until the middle of April, I say list now because there's less seller competition and there's a lot of buyers out in the marketplace wanting to buy," Junker says.
