Market Watch with Tonya Zimmern | Sellers Wanted

You might be shocked to learn that it's taking buyers an average of three months or longer to find a home in today's real estate market. Tonya Zimmern shares why.

For starters, studies show there is a 7% decline in newly listed properties, with overall listing inventory down 38.3% compared to this time last year. Difficulties finding a home to buy will likely lead to 20% of active buyers giving up until Spring or later. While they wait out the winter looking towards the typical April/May spring frenzy, serious buyers sticking to their home search during the earlier part of the year have a better chance of finding the home they want.

Thanks to the pandemic, people are spending more time at home. Mandates to work from home and online school classes combined with warnings for less congregating in places like gyms, for example, mean that people are not just home more, but they need more space with greater functionality than ever before. So, what may have been a great home before COVID-19 has increasingly become cramped and has families searching for more expansive floorplans and square footage. This ties into the trends that started in the fourth quarter where, for the first time in nearly a decade, demand for homes with greater square footage in bedroom communities as well as the luxury market appeared on the radar in a big way.

For sellers, this means the pool of buyers looking for homes today are likely not casual buyers; rather, they have been searching for the right home for several months and are ready to make an offer. Considering that the average appreciation rate between October 2019 and October 2020 was 16.1%, with an overall appreciation rate of 9% during the past six years, now's the time to take advantage of the opportunity to maximize your profits before the influx of spring listings begin to come on the market and your competition increases.

Whether you're a homeowner on the fence about selling, you're looking to downsize, or finding that it's time to buy a larger home for yourself, the Tonya Zimmern Team provides straight-forward, friendly guidance to simplify every phase of the buying/selling transaction.

Secrets Every Seller Should Know About Home Staging

• A home staging professional's job is to decorate your home to sell. "Decorating to sell," which is much different than decorating living, is about creating an emotional connection with buyers and making them literally fall in love with your home.
• Striking that feeling in a buyer where they fall in love' is the emotional trigger that results in an offer. Until this happens, buyers may say that a house "just wasn't quite right," and they will keep searching for a home until they feel that strong emotional connection.
• For a reasonable investment, studies show that sellers stand to potentially gain a significant return of up to 10% more at the closing table, which could mean an additional $25,000 - $100,000 or more.

Tonya Zimmern Team powered by Keller Williams has over 23 years of experience, the most robust real estate technology at their fingertips, and an award-winning team of experts, including an in-house home staging professional. Contact Tonya today to get started or request a free, no-obligation guide, Decluttering Your Way to Higher Offers - 850.684.8944, or email info@TonyaZimmern.com.