Is Summer Still The Best Time To Sell?
Since we’re in the throes of the traditional real estate selling season, you’re undoubtedly seeing a lot of opinion pieces extolling its virtues and urging you to get on the ball. It’s important to remember, though, that spring and summer as ideal selling seasons depend on everything from buyer demand to inventories to climate, and that’s before you start thinking about differences between local markets.
Atlanta in particular, and the southeast in general, is undergoing several changes that have upended the rules when it comes to selling. Before we get into these changes, it’s worth noting a new maxim: when it comes to selling, there’s no time like the present.
Even though there are slight variations between markets, overall the trend all across the country is that inventories are remarkably low and look poised to stay that way for the time being. This has kept us in a sellers’ market for quite some time, and buyer demand vs. the supply of available homes means that selling is ideal just about any time. It’s a large part of why property values have continued to increase with each passing year.
When inventories are high, or there are more homes for sale then there are buyers, these buyers face low competition among one another and sellers have to undercut prices and lure interested people to their homes. Under these conditions, showing one’s home in an ideal season and listing when there’s a high volume of buyers searching for homes – which, for both, pretty much means springtime – makes a lot of sense. That’s not what we’re looking at right now, though.
In the southeast, seasonal selling seasons were always a bit less important anyway. While no one wants to trudge through snow to see a home in Delaware in the middle of January, winters are much milder in this area of the country. Comfort and curb appeal drive the selling seasons as much as anything else, and the fact that the temperatures are mild year round down here means that winter is less of a deterrent to an interested buyer In fact, the heat of summer in Atlanta may very well keep buyers indoors or by the pool.
Speaking of Atlanta, we’re growing faster than most cities in the country and the real estate marketing is positively booming. While the metro area may not get as much attention as, say, Boulder Colorado, Atlanta is unique in that its suburban sprawl is much more integrated with the inner city than most areas.
Much of this growth can be attributed to Atlanta’s rising prominence as a logistics powerhouse, with many major corporations moving their operations here. Factor in the tax incentives for businesses, lower cost of living, the world’s busiest airport, the fact that the city is a major shipping hub, and the recent influx of film and entertainment production, the result is a literal flood of incoming workers and wealth.
As businesses move to where it makes economic sense, so too do workers gravitate towards opportunity. One of the first sectors to bear the brunt of these migrations is housing. Whether they’re renting or buying, these new people need places to live. More to the point, their movements aren’t seasonal, so our maxim holds: there’s no time to sell quite like the present.
The cost of living is exponentially lower here, as are corporate taxes, which affects everything from the buying power of consumers to the feasibility of corporations being able to hire workers of all skill levels. Unlike highly specialized – and expensive – areas like Silicon Valley, where a six-figure income is barely middle class, Atlanta’s cost of living and real estate prices make it a practical location for businesses to hire and retain workers of varying skill levels. It also means that wages have room to go up, and once again, people will move to where there’s opportunity.
All of this translates to increased market activity across most sectors, and while this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, in general it tends to suggest that real estate prices will continue to reliably trend upward. This means that the resale market is strong as well, so buyers and investors alike are thinking in the long term, which bolsters prices and increases the value of housing as a whole. So if you’re a seller and you need another few months to finish renovating your kitchen before you list your home, then don’t rush, do the job right, and understand that those buyers will still be around in the fall, ready to pay top dollar for your home.
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