Dreaming of selling your home? Browsing listings in your free time? You can’t be blamed; more Americans are moving right now than ever. Many took the changes of the past few years as a sign to pack up and move on to the next thing, and even if that isn’t the case for you, you can’t be blamed for feeling the tug of something new.
Of course, you’ll want to be sure before you go through the process of putting your home up for sale. Selling a home is a whole lot of work, and you’ll want to be certain of your decision before you kick off the selling process.
How can you come to this sometimes difficult decision? It can be helpful to look at your home and your life and seek out the signs that it’s time to move on. What should you be looking for? Read on, and we’ll walk you through what you need to know.
1. You’ve Outgrown Your Home
There are a lot of different reasons to consider home selling. However, there are few that will be as important as simply outgrowing the home that you’re in.
This is a common occurrence for many families, especially if the house that you are currently living in is the very first one that you bought. Most first homes are really starter homes, and you’ll need to upgrade at some point, either for space or convenience.
There are a lot of reasons why you might outgrow your home. Among the most common is starting a family. Your first home may not have much room for a new member (or two… or three… ) and you’ll need to move into a bigger home in order to make space.
You also might want to move when you have children for other reasons. You may want more outdoor space for the children to be able to play. You also might move to be in proximity to a certain school or school program.
Even if you aren’t expanding your family, the time might come where a new home will make more sense. You may have progressed in your life and career and have the money and stability you need to move forward.
When this happens, you may find yourself desiring a home that feels more in line with your current lifestyle. That might mean a bigger home, but it also might just mean a home in a more desirable neighborhood.
No matter the reason, outgrowing your home is a great reason to move. It doesn’t always mean you should move right away, and there are other factors to consider, but it’s something to always keep in mind.
Outgrowing your home is a perfectly natural turn of events and it happens to most people. You’ll just need to be ready to take advantage of the financial opportunities that present themselves when the time comes.
2. You Need Less Space
Outgrowing your home is the more discussed reason for selling, but the inverse can be true just as often. As life moves on and things change, a home that once made sense for your family might end up being much more spacious than you really need.
Downsizing your home can help you save money and increase your overall quality of life. While having a big home might be nice, many studies have shown that simplifying your lifestyle can actually bring about much more happiness.
If your kids have gone off to college, if you’ve recently become single, or if you simply just have always had more space than you need? Downsizing to a smaller home can provide a great many benefits.
This is a great opportunity to make a solid profit as well.
By the time most homeowners are ready to downsize, they’ve held onto their current property for many years. You may have even paid the mortgage off, meaning you can take the profits from the sale and pocket some of it when you move to get a new home.
Getting a smaller home might also mean you can live in a more desirable neighborhood for a lower price than you’re accustomed to. Downsizing opens up a number of great opportunities that you may not have considered.
3. The Market is in Your Favor
A home is a place to live and spend your time, but it’s also an investment. Ideally, you can sell your home at a higher price than what you purchased it for and take home a solid profit for yourself and your family. This profit can then be invested into your new home, and so on.
It’s advisable to sell your home at a time when the real estate market is hot and you can get a higher price. A hotter market means many people are looking to purchase a property in your area. The more sellers there are, the more competition there will be for the existing property.
This competition can push the prices up and may mean that you can sell your home at a higher asking price than you may have initially been expecting.
Generally, the real estate market is hot in the spring and summer and cooler during the rest of the year.
It’s important to think local when considering this timing. The housing market is not working the same everywhere at once, and just because homes are selling at high prices across town, doesn’t mean the same will be true in your neighborhood.
You should look up homes in your area and see how much they are going for. If the homes near you are selling for high prices, it’s a good indication that this moment might be the right one to sell.
If you want additional assurance, you might want to talk to real estate agents or property experts about what the market looks like in your area. They can advise you on what the outlook might be for your home if you were to put it on the market.
The speed of sales in your area is another thing to consider. The quicker homes move off the market, the less time and money you’ll have to spend listing your home, and the more money you can ultimately keep in your own pocket.
4. The Maintenence is Too Much
Ideally, a home is a source of future profit and an important investment. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Some properties can become money pits, where the cost of maintaining and repairing a home becomes greater than the money you could make by eventually selling it.
If you find yourself in this situation, selling your home quickly can help to limit how much money you lose. While it’s not an enviable position to be in, sometimes cutting your losses early can be better than continuing to bleed out money over time.
The average homeowner spends over $2,000 on maintenance and repairs, and that’s for homes that are in generally good condition. A home that has always been more of a fixer-upper can have costs that move far past that total.
These costs, combined with mortgage payments, taxes, and other fees, can become quite stressful for most homeowners. The more in need of repair a home is, the more advantageous it can be to sell it to a home flipper and take the profit you can.
Often, fixing up everything over many years is going to put you more at a loss than anything. If your list of tasks and needs for a home seems neverending, this might be the best path forward for your property.
5. You Need To Liquidate
Times have been financially tough for everyone these past few years, and it’s important to know when maintaining your current lifestyle is going to put you in a difficult position.
People are understandably reluctant to let go of their homes, but if you’re in increasing financial peril, it can be a smart move. Liquidating and selling your home can provide a great influx of cash and can help you to get back on your feet during a difficult time.
You can sell for cash and get out of a difficult decision quite quickly.
Getting the responsibility and costs of a home off of your shoulders can allow greater flexibility and can allow you to get your life back on track. You can live somewhere cheaper for some time and use this added flexibility to get your financial situation sorted out.
A home mortgage is often the biggest expense that many Americans face. It’s what limits their ability to take advantage of various opportunities. The payments are what can push many American workers toward debt.
Freeing yourself from this burden, even for a limited time, can be highly advantageous.
You can then buy another home when you’re on a more stable footing.
6. You’re Seeking a New Community or Neighborhood
Life isn’t just about sitting inside, of course. This is why what is located outside our homes and in close vicinity can be just as important as the home itself.
If you don’t have many friends in your current neighborhood, you may want to consider selling your home in order to move to a more community-oriented location.
There are, for example, many communities for retirees that are highly based on community living. These neighborhoods provide great opportunities to meet and befriend your neighbors, activities, classes, and special events. If you’re looking for more out of your life, moving to a community that puts this kind of contact first can help out a lot.
Even if you don’t need that much hands-on help, it can be worth moving somewhere that is a bit closer to the kind of places you like to spend time. If you’re an avid eater, you may want to live near where some of the best restaurants, eateries, and bars are in town.
Your life can look a lot different when these places are just a stone’s throw away as opposed to somewhere across town.
You may also want to move closer to nature of some sort. Maybe moving near a large park or somewhere you can hike, for example. Our lives can be improved greatly by spending more time outside, and considering this when you think of your current living arrangement can be helpful.
The same can be said when it comes to living near the beach or off any other sort of body of water.
7. Remodeling Your Home Adds No Value
Generally, we take on many DIY jobs or upgrades in our homes as the years go by. However, you may reach a certain point where doing this kind of work won’t add much more value to your home.
Often, a renovation in the bathroom, kitchen, or backyard will help to boost the resale value of your property. This means you’ll get to enjoy these changes and nearly see them pay for themselves when it comes time to sell.
However, at a certain point, the new changes you make to your home will hit some sort of ceiling. You can make new changes to your home at this point and not see much benefit when it comes to your final asking price. Once you hit this moment, you’ve possibly capped out on what you can do with your current home.
It might make more sense to sell your home and take on a new property.
Reasons to Start the Home Selling Process
Americans move many times over the course of their lives – twelve times on average.
If you’re thinking this might be the moment for you to sell your current home, you’ll want to double-check the above reasons. The selling process can take a lot of work, and it’s important to feel confident in your decision before you get started.
Need help getting your home sold right away? Give us a call for immediate assistance.