Thinking of selling your San Diego home? View our “What You Need To Know When Selling Your Home In San Diego” post.
Fact: If you are going to sell your San Diego home, you’ll need to find another place to live. We published several posts here to help you find a new home such as:
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Find out what to know about selling property in San Diego.
Take advantage of San Diego’s hot real estate market.
Find out the best times to sell your San Diego home.
Learn what challenges you will face when selling your home and how to overcome them.
Do you have a timeline to sell?
Learn how to prepare your San Diego home for sale.
How will your financial health affect your home sale?
Learn how to price your home for sale.
Try out our unique Homebot tool to instantly learn your equity and home value.
View more useful tips for selling your home.
Can you sell your home yourself, or need a Realtor?
Here’s What You Need To Know When Selling Your Property In San Diego
San Diego is experiencing a hot seller’s market. Learn more in our blog post: “San Diego Hot Housing Market in 2022”.
Follow our tips to sell at the highest price fast.
When You Should Sell a Home in San Diego
Know when the peak periods arise and when a seller’s market occurs.
What is a Seller’s Market?
In real estate, a seller’s market occurs when only a few homes are available to sell. Fewer homes for sale than buyers looking to purchase creates the perfect seller’s market. This is good for sellers. Why?
Low inventory inflates home prices as demand is greater than supply. Buyers become desperate, often bidding against each other for every desirable home.
The exact opposite of a seller’s market is a buyer’s market. Then, it becomes a bad time to list your home for sale in San Diego.
Offseason Listings Sell for Less
Like climate seasons, off-seasons occur in real estate. For homes, the offseason occurs in the early winter months. November through January are considered offseason for home sales for several reasons:
Holidays distract buyers like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah / Hanukkah, and New Year;
People hosting and attending season holidays take away time from looking at homes for sale; and
Moving a family during this period means their kids switching schools during a school term which hurts their grades.
What are the Best Months to List Your Home in San Diego?
Contrary to winter, early April along with June through early September are the best months to sell your home in San Diego.
An early April listing gives you a jump on the home sales market. Early June is when children are leaving school for the summer until early September when school starts.
Yet, if you need to sell because of a better job opportunity or early retirement or the desire to live elsewhere, then any time is a good time to sell.
What Issues You May Face When Selling Your San Diego Home?
We can’t cover every issue sellers face here, so read our posts about issues not covered here:
The art of home selling requires knowing what challenges you may face when listing your home for sale. Some challenges are in your control like:
Your timeline to sell and buy another home;
The condition of your home needs repairs and upgrading before you list for a higher price;
Your debt ratio lessens after you sell your home making it easier to qualify for buying a new home; and
What price do you list your home to sell fast at the highest price?
In contrast, other challenges are out of your control like market trends creating a buyer’s or seller’s market. Factors like interest rates rising or falling, inflation, and inventory affect market trends. Then, you may have to wait for a seller’s market to get a higher price and a faster sale.
Your Timeline to Sell
The shorter the time frame to sell your home and buy its replacement puts more stress and pressure on your selling price with less profit.
Contrarily, the luxury of having plenty of time to sell and then buy gives you the flexibility to list for a higher price and wait to see how buyers react. Also, it gives you more time to negotiate with buyers for better terms and prices.
The Condition of Your Home
Before listing, your Realtor should view your entire home to advise you on what repairs or upgrades are needed. Your Realtor can advise you about low-cost upgrades to increase the value of your home.
Also, hire a professional home inspector to do a complete home inspection to find hidden defects needing repairs. Read our post: “Benefits of Home Inspection in California”.
How to Prepare Your Home for Sale in San Diego
After living in your home for many years, you may find too much stuff and clutter getting in the way of buyers. The home selling process requires preparing your home for sale. Here are some tips:
Deep clean your home from top to bottom, inside and outside;
Hide the clutter and unneeded personal items;
Paint every room and siding in need of new paint, stick to neutral colors;
Enhance lighting in every room;
Landscape your front, side, and back yards;
Take high-quality photos and videos for your listing, ads, and marketing efforts; and
Create curb appeal.
What is curb appeal? Investopedia defines it as: “Curb appeal is a term used by realtors that refers to the aesthetic attractiveness of a property, as viewed from some distance by a prospective buyer.”
Also, learn how to stage your home for buyers. Read our “Tips for Staging Your San Diego Home When Selling”.
Your Finances
Your income and debts play an important part when buying your replacement home. Obtaining a mortgage depends on your income-to-debt ratio and credit score. Applying for a mortgage gets easier when you already sold your home with money in the bank
Getting yourself into good financial health means qualifying for a larger mortgage to buy a better home.
How to Price Your San Diego Home to Sell
This is very important. Setting your initial sales price can make or sink your ability to sell fast for the highest price.
If you list too high, buyers will not even bother to preview it. Or, if you list too low buyers will wonder what is wrong with it. Suspicious buyers are found everywhere.
Pricing it right is what you want to do from the start.
Don’t depend on a typical Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) which was useful before local Multiple Listing Services (MLS) descriptions went online for public view. Nowadays, most buyers begin their search for a new home online before contacting a Realtor to help them.
Luckily, we use more advanced and sophisticated tools to determine reasonable listing prices for our sellers. Check out our Homebot Home Value Estimator explained in our blog post about using an “Online Property Value Calculator”. It will instantly give you an estimated value of your home and your current equity.
Ready to Try Out the Homebot Home Value Estimator?
More Tips About Selling Your San Diego Home
Here are some prior posts with more tips to help you sell your San Diego home:
Should I Sell My Home By Myself or Use a Realtor?
It’s not easy selling a home by yourself. You need to know the following:
Federal, state, and San Diego real estate laws;
The art of selling a home quickly and for the highest price;
Marketing your home for sale;
How to negotiate with buyers; and
Real estate sales contract terms, contingencies, and contract laws.
Benefits of Listing Your San Diego Home with a Realtor
Here are some of the benefits of using a local Realtor to sell your home:
Experienced Realtors know your San Diego neighborhood and recent sales prices for similar homes;
Realtors work on a commission, only getting paid when they find a buyer ready, willing, and able to buy your home;
Your Realtor will list your home for sale with the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) to get the best exposure;
Market your home through social media channels and other outlets;
Negotiate with buyers to get you the best price and terms;
Give you guidance and access to legal advice to protect you and your home through the sales process; and
Handle all the documents and paperwork to complete your sale to the buyer.
Read our informative post explaining: “Why You Need an Experienced California Real Estate Agent”.
What You Need To Know When Selling Your Property In San Diego - Conclusion
We covered many topics in our “What You Need To Know When Selling Your Property In San Diego “post.
The highlights include:
Take advantage of San Diego’s current “hot” real estate market;
The best months to list your San Diego home for sale are early April along with June through early September;
Challenges with selling your home include those under your control like the timeline to sell and buy, condition of your home, and lowering your debt to afford a better home;
Challenges not under your control include market trends;
Our Homebot Home Value Estimator quickly shows your current equity and your home’s market value in San Diego; and
The benefits of using a San Diego Realtor to list, market, and sell your home.
Ready to Sell Your Home in San Diego County?
SoCal Lifestyle Realty believes in educating our sellers with our informative blog posts. That’s because educated sellers work better as a team with our Realtors. Together our team will sell your home faster at the highest price throughout San Diego County.
Contact us to learn more about our unique Homebot Home Value Estimator helping San Diego home sellers gain insight into the best sales price and projected profits from the sale.