The approaching spring selling season. I don’t have to tell you Realtors out there that the hot sales time of year is near. For you, it’s like Christmas in March.
And April.
And May.
I know a little about this subject, having just last year gone through this process myself.
As a seller.
And simultaneously as a buyer.
That means I also can tell you firsthand, and with a fresh memory, what it’s like to be in your clients’ shoes. Maybe they’re just planning to move across town and downsize. Or perhaps they have growing families and need more space, different amenities or a location that better fits their needs. They may be selling in order to buy a home in another state.
The last one was me in February 2017.
Regardless of the circumstances, for the seller there is no shortage of anxiety. What improvements should I make? How much stuff should I stash off-site? How many problems is the inspector going to find that I will have to fix? Am I going to be able to have enough capital from the sale to make a decent down payment on the next place?
Toss in a wife who is temporarily working at home and has no choice but to keep a makeshift home office space filled with paperwork and a teenager understandably resistant to the whole idea and there are plenty of things to worry about.
And don’t even think about that fact that the house was built atop a sandstone boulder with only a few inches of soil above it rendering an acceptable lawn past May nearly impossible to maintain.
Through it all, Realtors — who know their business better than we sellers — press for pristine presentation in the same environment in which we’re cooking, eating, showering, doing laundry, packing to move and, once in a while, relaxing.
Folks, it’s not easy on us.
Fortunately, our home was a 6-year-old builder’s model we owned for four years. It included every upgrade feature the builder offered at that time and was in a high-visibility location. We purchased all the contents as well, which meant nearly all the touches imagined by an interior designer, whose primary objective is to create an emotional response with customers, remained in place and withstood the test of time.
Confidence that our home showed like a model — because it essentially was — did little to diminish the anxiety that pressure to sell can bring, exacerbated by trying to determine what was the best time to begin showing. We needed to remain in the home until midsummer while recognizing the peak sales months in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area were March and April.
We prepared the home for sale — paint touch-ups, carpet cleaning, pressure washing, window cleaning, moving boxes and containers to off-site storage and more.
A “coming soon” sign stood in the front yard for nearly two months as we waited — much to our Realtor’s chagrin — for the home-selling sweet spot.
We weren’t asking for much: Sell the house in April, close in May, vacate at the end of July.
Simple.
Remarkably, that’s exactly how it played out. The teaser sign drew the attention of an agent who followed our Realtor’s listings in the neighborhood. His client was the first — and as it turns out, only — showing, just two hours after the listing went live.
An immediate full-price offer was made and accepted, with the proviso that we closed the last business day in May and we rented back for two months.
Yes, we were fairly high-maintenance clients, but in the end, it was a win for everyone, including the Realtors involved.
Although we got lucky, it was one of the most stressful times of our lives. I can only imagine how difficult a more typical home-selling process must be.
Heading into the spring, thousands of home sellers will endure that process. Selling those homes is your business, Realtors, but for the homeowners, be ever mindful that it is their lives.
