North Shore Views

Why You Shouldn't Wait 'til Spring to List Your Home

Typically the real estate market is pretty dead between Thanksgiving and February, so people planning to sell in the new year usually wait until after Super Bowl Sunday to put their houses on the market. But this year will likely be different. Here’s why you should get your property listed as early as you can:

1. The extension of the first time buyer tax credit and the expansion of the tax credit to existing homeowners until April 30 means that there will be a continued influx of buyers into the market during the first quarter of 2010. Buyers who want to take advantage of the tax credit will begin looking for a new home earlier, to make sure they can find a home, arrange financing and close before the June 30 deadline. Here’s a good chart outlining the rules of the tax credit.
2. Interest rates are at or near 40 year lows right now, further stimulating buyer demand. But these rates are not likely to hold for long. While there probably won’t be a big increase in rates this year, they will start to   drift upward somewhat in the next 3-6 months.
3. Because many people will follow traditional wisdom and wait to list until later in the spring, you will have less competition if you can get a jump on them. People who are willing to brave single digit temps to look at houses are SERIOUS buyers.

If you’re thinking and hoping that prices might improve  if you wait a little longer, forget it. There’s a good chance that prices still have a little bit farther to fall before stabilizing.  And, even if prices are at or near the bottom, it is unlikely that we will see any upward movement in prices until later in the year. Real estate prices don’t tend to rebound in a “V” shape but rather in a  “U” shape with a wide trough before slowly starting to climb again.

Tags: home buyer tax credit, home selling tips, when to list your home for sale