How To Motivate Your Sellers
Here’s how to light a fire under your fence-sitting sellers.
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For most areas, the spring market really starts the day after Christmas. People don’t actually put their houses on the market then, but that is when they start thinking about it. Many would-be buyers are having a hard time finding properties they want to move into because of the low inventory. In turn, many decide they want to wait until the spring to sell (in their minds, that’s around March and April). To combat that, we need to create a sense of urgency in our market’s sellers, but how?
There’s actually a process for this. Create a timing analysis that covers how much time it will take for someone to list and sell their home. Most people say that it takes around two weeks to get a home ready for the market, but I say double the estimated prep time to a month.
After the home is ready, we’ll put it on the market. We don’t yet know what 2022’s market time will be like, but let’s just say it’s 90 days. With one month of prep time and three months on the market, it’ll take about four months in total to complete the sale.
Waiting till the spring means that they probably won't move until closer to the fall.
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What happens if the contract falls apart? In that case, you need to account for the fall-through time, which we’ll say, as an example, is another 30 days. That adds another month to the process. You also have to count the contract-to-close time, which is often around 45 days, bringing the total average length of the home-buying process to 6.5 months. And if there’s a post-occupancy agreement, that could add a month or two as well.
So when people say that they’re going to wait until the spring to sell their homes, you need to account for all these factors. Waiting till the spring really means that they probably won't move until closer to the fall.
In the end, if your seller says that they plan to wait until the spring, show them a timing analysis to create a sense of urgency. The spring market has already begun.
If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. Let’s go sell some houses!
