When Is The Best Time To Sell Your Home?

When Is The Best Time To Sell Your Home?

When Is The Best Time To Sell Your Home?!?!

Welcome back once again! I’m Erik Braceland with Braceland Homes here in sunny San Diego, California, where we guarantee the sale and/or purchase of your home. Here on the Braceland Homes blog we cover topics related to buying and selling residential real estate, and trends happening across the housing market, with new videos every Thursday.

There are a lot of factors contributing to this perfect storm for many of you home sellers. Last week I talked about our record low housing inventory levels. The extremely low housing inventory levels are a good segue way into what I want to focus on today, which is buyer activity. What’s happening with buyers? Well, the pandemic is definitively not holding them back, or slowing buyer demand for the available homes out there. As I mentioned, there is still a huge lack of housing inventory like we talked about last week, but home showings are still strong. 

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The headline right here reads, Greater than last November. This is from ShowingTime. You know, ever since the pandemic, we’ve looked at ShowingTime to measure home buyer activity. We know on the front end it’s a leading indicator of activity. If people aren’t scheduling showings, then those ultimately don’t turn into contracts, and ultimately homes sold. But we look at this past November of 2021 as compared to the last November of 2020. We’re ahead in showings with stronger activity than last November. It’s very interesting that we see that strong activity continuing to happen from buyers across the country. 

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I think this really speaks to those of you that wonder about the health of the real estate market. Is it slowing down? It is not slowing down. You know, showings still continue to crush pre-pandemic numbers, so the housing market doesn't really appear to be slowing down from a demand prospective. This is a look at showings over the last five Novembers. You see 2017, 2018, 2019, and I always call those the last three normal years, maybe in the world, and if not, at least they were in real estate. In 2020, we see the shoot up there in home buyer activity. We know very well what that was all about. And in 2021, we’re seeing even more of that. Activity also remaining strong coming into the holiday season, that we just wrapped up. Some strong evidence of continuing buyer demand there.

Michael Lane, President of ShowingTime, says it best this way,. “Showings traditionally lag during the holiday season, but the data we’re seeing tells us that buyer demand remains strong. The fact that every region showed a year-over-year increase indicates that buyers are undeterred and it speaks to their desire to keep searching for their next home.” No doubt buyers out there are in force, many of them motivated by a number of different things right now. It could be the impetus of rising rates and saying we want to do something before they rise. It could be a scenario where they’re saying hey, something’s changed in life or in work, or you know, that’s caused different needs. But no doubt the buyers are out there, and they’re out there in force.  

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Ultimately, I talk a lot about this leading indicator of home showings that can predict the results of your successful home sale. Those home showings are turning into home sales. Home Sales are higher than pre-pandemic numbers as well. Off a little bit from 2020. But again, you go back to the normal years there in gray, we see pre-pandemic the measure of that from the National Association of Realtors, and buyer demand just wasn't as strong as it is now. Don't let this environment of strong demand and low competition pass you buy if you are thinking of selling your home.

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I also wanted to quickly take a look at home prices here in our local San Diego housing market. You can see here that prices continue to appreciate pretty steadily over the last two years shown here. We do have some stalls, like in August, where things cooled off a little, but great gains overall. I did want to show this because you'll notice prices do appear to be leveling off here. We were still gaining ground through November, where our median San Diego home prices peaked at seven hundred and ninety thousand dollars, but then we lost a little ground in December returning to October levels. I'm not saying we're at the top of the market yet, but what a run! You can't go wrong selling now if you're in the market to do so. We've made about a hundred thousand dollars, in gains, in each of the last two years, in the San Diego housing market! If you couple that with the super-low housing inventory levels, and the ultra-active and competitive home buyer environment...you're gonna hit a home run with your home sale!

As always, I want to remind you to take a hard look at what's best for you and your family before making any decision. That's the most important thing. Tune out all the external noise and distraction, and decide if now is the right time for you to make a move. If it is, then Great! You are bound to have a pleasant home selling experience right now. Of course, it is important to find a trusted real estate advisor, broker, or agent to help you navigate all the marketing, contract, and negotiation challenges that ultimately come up once you've made the decision to sell your home. If you are also looking to buy another home, that will present its own unique set of challenges. My team and I are ready to help with whatever you need, if and when you are ready, so give us a call at Braceland Homes 619-947-3560.  

So, in case I didn't do a good job explaining this, the best time to sell your home is, always, the time that's right for you and your family. After that, the best time to sell your home is right now, with all the factors currently working in harmony to produce an awesome home selling outcome for you.

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