Should You Sell Your Home Before the End of the Year?

The calendar year is winding down. Should you rush to list your home?

Right now, it's a seller's market through and through. With limited housing inventory and competitive mortgage rates, buyers are clamoring for homes. If you list your home between now and the end of 2021, you might manage to command a price for it that you're more than happy with.

But is selling your home in the coming weeks a good idea? While it could work out well for you, you might also face some challenges if you go this route.

The problem with selling a home late in the year

While the demand for new homes is quite strong right now, home buyer activity could wane in the coming weeks as people get distracted by the holidays. Plus, as temperatures take a turn for the much colder, you may run into trouble listing your home. Open houses could get canceled or have lackluster turnouts due to snow and weather issues, while individual showings could get delayed.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if your home's curb appeal is a big selling point, you might lose out by listing your property during the winter. Similarly, if you have a nice pool to show off, you may not be able to do that in December.

All of this has the potential to cause you a lot of stress as a seller. Also, the longer your home sits on the market, the worse it looks for you. If your home isn't scooped up quickly, buyers might assume no one wants it or that there's something wrong with it. They might use that as a reason to try to talk you down on price.

Now to be clear, none of this is guaranteed to happen. But it's something you should be aware of.

The upside of listing your home soon

Despite the above challenges, a big reason to move forward with a listing late in 2021 is that the demand for homes is still high and mortgage rates are still low. Granted, rates are likely to stay low into 2022, but experts are already warning they could rise in the coming year. Once that happens, buyers may not be as quick to scoop up homes, so it could work to your advantage to put your home up for sale sooner rather than later.

What's the right choice?

Selling a home is not an easy process to go through. You have to keep your home perpetually neat and decluttered and deal with strangers traipsing through your space. If you have a lot of plans for the holidays, that's something you may have difficulty managing, so make sure you can really handle the idea of listing your home before 2021 comes to an end.

If you decide to wait until 2022, there's a good chance you'll still enjoy your share of buyers, especially if you put your home up for sale closer to spring. After all, so many people have struggled to buy a home this year, those who were unsuccessful are likely to have their eyes on 2022.