Selling Your Home Over The Holidays

Thanksgiving through Christmas are the slowest time for home sales, some people even take them off the market and list them again in the spring. If you have yours on the market in this time you can take advantage of the limited number of listings and the fact that buyers shopping this time of year are highly motivated. The holidays can be a rough time for home sales but they are also a fun time for staging and showing your home! Here are a few tips to making selling your home over the winter holidays effective.

Making your home look cozy, warmer, brighter and desirable takes more work in the winter, with its cold temperatures and overcast days. The first place to start is the thermostat, there's nothing worse than trying to look at a house while shivering, you don't have to make it seem like the tropics but around 75 is a good temperature during a showing or open house. If you have fireplaces in your home winter is a great time to show them off! During showings, make sure to leave all the lights on (don't worry about the electric bill, they won't dent it too much) or request that showing are during the daytime if possible.

Now we come to the fun part, decorating for the holidays! Who can resist a classically decorated home? Think more Home Alone (before the robbers try to break in) and not Clark Griswold's over done décor (check the Christmas tree for squirrels though), keep decorations purposeful and don't let them distract from the architectural features of the home. Make sure to change up the scent of your home to reflect the season, cranberry, apples and cinnamon are great reminders of the holidays. You may want to place mock gifts under the tree and keep the real gifts out of sight somewhere.

During open houses have hot apple cider, candy canes and fresh cookies available for snacking.

If snow is in the forecast, make sure to arrange for removal, who wants to trek through the snow to look at a home. If there's not a cleared path potential buyers may just stay in the car and move on to the next home.

One last tip, if you list in the winter, you should try to find recent pictures of your home from spring or summer when the yard is green and the trees are full to have your agent post with the listing.

Tips for Siblings Selling Their Parent's Home

As we age, our parents are aging and at some point they will both pass on, most likely leaving a home to their children. Situations like this can get sticky when there are multiple siblings inheriting the house. There are many personality traits that may come out, some of the siblings may want to take complete control, leaving the others out of the decision process, thus creating bruised feelings and stress relationships. We all want to have harmony at Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas, so having a plan of action is the first step to a smooth process. Here are some tips, some are a little harsh but needed, to getting that plan going with ease.

• Make sure taxes, insurance, and mortgages are being paid.
• Wait 30 days before making any decisions – giving everyone time to grieve and detach feelings.
• Make sure to keep everyone equal partners. (Leave spouses out of the equation, that can sometime create conflict with siblings).
• Make sure to meet in a neutral location. This may sound odd but meeting at one siblings home may intimidate others.
• Pick a specific date to get the house on the market.
• Have a couple real estate professionals come do market analysis on the home to get a real market value. This will help you understand what the home is actually worth in today's market.
• Make list of repairs that need to be made to the home. Using a inspector’s checklist will help make sure you get the essentials taken care of.
• You'll also want to make a list of purely aesthetic things that need to be done to increase curb appeal.
• Keep track of the expenses of the projects so that everyone get reimbursed for what they have bought after the sale.

If you have siblings that are out of state or can't be at meetings, make sure to keep them in the loop via conference call and make sure that their opinions are valued.

Sad to say, but if there are any adult siblings living in the home, you should be collecting rent from them until the house sells, even if your parents had let them live rent free, as this tips the scales of being equal partners.

In the case that one sibling wants to purchase the home, they should be treated the same as an outside buyer, having to pay fair market value to the estate, minus their percentage of the whole purchase price.

None of us wants to go through loosing loved ones then having to deal with the sale of a home. Remember through the whole process that your partners in this are your family and are going through the same lose as you.

Here are some other great articles that may help you in the process:

http://www.ehow.com/how_10068546_sell-inherited-home-parents.html

http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/2007/03/secure.html

http://www.rd.com/videos/selling-your-deceased-parents-home-34800257

http://youtu.be/ln4EN9HiQYo