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Are you prepared for our changing market in 2019? 

Home Market : The Changes and Its Effects

By Tanya Nazariya (Owner of Brilliant Staging & Design)

Hello, my lovely followers!

Sorry it took me so long to get this blog out! I am a down-to-business kind of gal and don’t get very much spare time to write. I am a business owner and mother of two small children (Gabriel 3 and Athena 1). So taking the time to write is difficult, to say the least.

There has been a lot of talk about our real estate market shifting. Many sellers are stressing out and don’t know if they should sell their homes. The market is indeed shifting! 2019 will be a lot different than 2017 and 2018, so be prepared. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sell your home. All this means is you should take the steps needed to ensure your home will sell in a timely fashion.

Know your MARKET

First lets talk about the home market and how this affects your home selling process. Think about it, thousands of homes go on the market in your area each year. How will your home stand out from the rest? Currently on Zillow there are about 14,000 homes for sale in the Greater Seattle Area. Keep in mind this is slow season too! The home market has been slowing down over the last 9 months. In September the number of single-family homes on the market in King County jumped 68 percent from the prior year, the biggest increase on record dating back to 2000, according to new data. Sales dropped 27 percent across King County, the biggest decline since 2010, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service’s (MLS).

Sellers got spoiled with our home market the last couple years. People expect that they will list their home and within a few weeks it will be sold over asking price. The housing prices in Seattle have been steadily increasing for the past decade. The price hike happed a lot faster over the last couple of years, due to demand outpacing the supply. But unfortunately sellers need to prepare for a change. Forecasts show that 2019 will be different! The price increase will go back to a slower rate, mainly because of the huge increase in homes for sale. The supply is now greater than the demand. In fact, MLS reported “In King County, supply exceeded two months for the first time since January 2015”.

How the Home Market Affects You

This is great for buyers as they will have more choices and will actually have the opportunity to view multiple homes and put in their offers without being rushed. When we purchased our home a few years ago it was insane! If we didn’t put in an offer as soon as a home hit the market, it would be gone in a matter of days!! Thank god this will not be the case anymore… for homebuyers that is! Not for all of you who make a living flipping homes, work in Real Estate, or just plan to sell your home in the near future. For sellers it means it will take a little more time and effort to sell their home. But don’t worry; there are ways to help offset the slower market.

How to Sell a Home Faster in a Slower Market

There are several ways you can increase your chances of selling a home faster in our current market.

  1. Prepare your home for sale: this includes renovations, decluttering, cleaning
  2. Professionally stage your home
  3. Have the home photographed by an amazing photographer
  4. Hire a smart, savvy and aggressive real estate agent
  5. Price Appropriately
  6. Marketing!!

One of the most important steps is making sure you have a good agent. An agent should be able to help you with all of the other steps. He or she should recommend a good stager, a good photographer and help you prioritize and prepare. Your agent should tell you how to price your home based on comps in the area and do all of your marketing for you. Do not settle with an agent just because they give you a good deal. It is vital to the sale of your home to have someone who goes above and beyond to sell your home.

In my next blog I will go into more depth on step #1: Preparing your home for sale. The following blog with go into more detail on the marketing of your home, so stay tuned for more information.

Best of luck on your home selling and buying adventures!

 


Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for more tips, tricks and photos @brilliantstaging. If there is any topic in particular you’d like to read about, please don’t hesitate to ask. I take all questions to heart and want to help people understand staging, real estate, and design.

1/1/2019

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