Buyers choose to buy all year long for various reasons.  Leases expire, their existing home goes under contract, or a new job opportunity in SW Florida presents itself for an out of state buyer.  People retire, relocate, and buy vacation homes 12 months out of the year.  Florida is a net gain state, meaning it’s gaining more residents than it loses each year.  So, we decided to answer the question, “Are certain months better to list your home for maximum results?”

Certain Months Better to List Your Home for Maximum Results

As you can see from the graph, listings pick up each year around October.  In 2016 it started in September, but only modestly.  As a seller, you have a distinct advantage of being on the market in August and September over those that enter the market in October.

With limited choices for buyers, they are forced to scoop up homes that meet their criteria quickly for fear of losing out to other buyers.  This fear disappears when more listings enter the market.  In fact, when buyers lose their fear of missing out on a home, they become indifferent.  When this occurs, we know we’ve hit a pricing plateau and buyers have turned off.  The market must re-balance itself, and correct.  The sellers that react and respond quickly get out.  The sellers that do not, linger on the market wondering what it’s going to take to sell their home.

Thankfully we don’t have that market right now.  Buyers are motivated because many sellers have made price corrections.  Interest rates are rising, and it’s costing buyers to wait.  They need a home, and they want one now, within reason.  Buyers aren’t acting stupid today.  They are educating themselves, studying the market, and acting when they need to.

And this is precisely why sellers who are on the market in August and priced correctly have a distinct advantage to sellers who wait until October.  Ask yourself two questions?

When is the best time to sell an item?  The answer is when there are fewer items on the market. When is the best time to purchase an item?  This answer is when there are more items to choose from.  It’s simple supply and demand.

The listings are coming, we know this for sure.  It happens every year.  If you’re a seller contemplating a sale, wouldn’t it make sense to beat the seller rush and put your home on the market now?  Buyers are out there, and they’re motivated.  Many buyers are frustrated because they can’t score a deal.  They’re getting beat out by other buyers and watching home after home come off the market while they have none.  They need a home, they’re watching rates go up, and yet they can’t catch a break.

Sellers can take advantage of this mismatch, but time is running out.  Soon, other sellers will have the same idea and place their home on the market, and you lose your advantage.  Oh, you can still sell in October-December.  It’s just more fun when less sellers are competing with you.

Imagine being a high school girl waiting for a guy to ask you to prom.  Wouldn’t it be nice if there were 5 girls in the class and 30 boys?  You’d practically have your pick of which offer to choose.  You wouldn’t settle for the 1st offer if it wasn’t right, because you know better options are a moment away.  It wouldn’t be so good for the buys though.  Only 5 would get dates, and the other 25 would be waiting for a new girl to move to town.

This is what it’s like in August in the SW Florida housing market.  Buyers are looking.  Supply is limited in certain price ranges.  Our team is having another record month in August.  We need more listings.  Our marketing is working.  If you’re thinking of selling anytime soon, we should probably talk.

Call Brett or Sande Ellis 239-489-4042 Ext 4.  Or visit www.SWFLhomevalues.com to get an instant free idea of what your home may be worth.  Let us show you how we can save you thousands on your next transaction!

Ellis Team Weekend Open Houses

We used to tell sellers that open houses weren’t a good way to sell a home, and for the most part that used to be true.  Realtors who didn’t spend a lot of money advertising liked doing them to pick up customers.  They were basically free customers.  Oh, they rarely bought the open house they visited, but they might buy something.  In fact, the National Association of Realtors did a study and said that about 1% of the time a buyer found the home they bought from an open house. Now the Ellis Team uses open houses tool to sell homes.

Open Houses Tool to Sell Homes

Times have changed.  Here’s where it gets spooky, in a good way.  Companies like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, and others know lots of things about you.  They know if you’re planning on moving soon, having a baby, about to retire, if you’re into boating, golf, beaches, or tennis.

Open Houses Tool to Sell Homes

The Ellis team has a way to target specific people and tailor ads to them.  Many times, we’ll do this for an open house.  Let’s say we list a property in a golf community.  We can target golfers and send them ads about the open house.  We can do the same with properties at or near the beach, 55+ communities, waterfront homes, etc.  Whatever the home has we identify some interests a buyer might have for that home and target ads directly to that buyer.

The buyer doesn’t have to be from here either.  Realtors often ask us how we drive so much traffic to our open houses.  That’s a good question, but the better question is how do we sell so many of our open houses?  Sure, our marketing drives a lot of traffic to our open houses.  That seems like a miracle to other agents.  The real miracle is the fact we drive buyers for that home to our open houses, not just traffic.

Traffic looks good to a seller.  If we drove 100 people to a home but none could buy it, the seller would be impressed that our marketing was able to do that.  However, the home wouldn’t sell because it was not the right traffic.

Back to the spooky part.  Online companies do not share with business the personal identities of their users.  They do open up portals for astute businesses to create targeted audiences, and the Ellis Team spends a lot of time studying these options.

Not only do we spend a lot of money advertising our listings, we also spend hours setting up these targeted audiences for each home.  Often we’ll advertise a home to several audiences, because the buyer may have multiple interests.  We can even target people who earn a certain amount of money or have a certain net worth.

Whiskey Creek Home Sold in 13 Days

We had a $825,000 listing that we sold in 13 days.  We targeted people who made over $125k per year because the average Joe wouldn’t be buying that home.  Sure enough, our listing sold even though there were other listings on the street.

While we do all this in-house, we have another provider that advertises our website all over the Internet seeking buyers.  That works too because we have thousands of buyers who have signed up and provided us their name, email, phone number, price range, and where they’re looking.  Our agents are working with and finding these buyers property every day.  The way agents attract buyers is different than it used to be.  What did not work years ago can work today if you add a twist to it.

The Ellis Team at Keller Williams Realty prides itself on being at the forefront of marketing and reaching today’s buyers.  If you’d like to search for your piece of paradise, check out www.LeeCountyOnline.com. We think you’ll love the website and what all you can search for there.

Also you might want to check out our open houses this weekend. We will be holding 17655 Village Inlet Ct open Saturday 1-4 and we will be holding 16150 Bay Pointe Blvd open Sunday 1-3 and 11204 Adora Ct in Paseo open Sunday 1-4. See you there!

Thinking of Selling?

If you’re thinking of selling, please call Sande or Brett Ellis at 239-489-4042 Ext 4  We’d be happy to show you how we can target buyers for your home and get your home sold Fast!

Ellis Team Weekend Open Houses

Open House Saturday 1-4 PM

Open House Sunday 1-4 PM

Paseo-Esperanza Neighborhood

Open House Sunday 1-3 PM

Waterfront Condo North Fort Myers

January 2018 sales numbers for Lee County were recently released and for the first time in a while median home prices dropped.  Granted, the drop was only -.2%, however it underscores a larger picture.

Lee County Florida Home Prices Holding Steady

If you look at the home price graph for Lee County you’ll notice most of our price gains occurred in 2016.  Since December of 2016, home prices are down.  We had a few months better than others in 2017.  If you look at where we started 2017 at a median price of $245,000 and where we start 2018 with a media price of $244,500 you can see we lost about $500.  That’s nothing to worry about one way or the other.

The takeaway from all of this is that you can’t price ahead of the market if the market isn’t moving.  In a hot seller’s market, sellers could over-price today’s market and soon enough the market would catch the new price.  It might take a few months, but when it does, you have a sale.

In a declining market, you want to price ahead of the market as well.  You never want to get caught chasing the market down.  You price lower than the market and get out, because if you price at market and don’t sell the 1st week, you’ve missed it already.

In a horizontal market like we have now, it’s important to find the market, price it right there, and market the heck out of the property.  Only then will you know if you’ve properly priced it.  If the market doesn’t respond, it’s not the marketing.

People say price sells cars, and price sells homes.  This is true, however we’ve seen instances where a home was priced correctly and just doesn’t sell.  Adding aggressive marketing can make the sale.  The absence of marketing increases the chances a home will sell below market.  This is one reason For Sale By Owners sell for so much less than listed properties.  They don’t have the audience a typical Realtor has, and certainly not the audience of an aggressive Realtor that markets.

Because For Sale By Owners sell for so much less, they don’t save the commission.  It costs them to sell on their own.

When you’re interviewing Realtors, it’s important to note that all Realtors are not the same.  Not all Realtors advertise in newspaper, yellow pages, Facebook, Google, Bing, Yahoo, online newspapers all over the world, Instagram, Google+, Zillow, Trulia, realtor.com, Homes.com, Instagram, and the list goes on.

Maximum exposure equates to a higher sales price.  Imagine you had an estate auction and 10 people showed up to bid.  You’d sell some stuff.  Now imagine you held the same auction, and 10,000 people showed up to bid.  You’d sell all or most of your stuff, and the prices would be higher on much of it.  Why?  Because you attracted more people to bid.  Full market exposure equals maximum market price.  Anything less than that does not.

And while the saying price sells homes is true, it’s only partially true.  Anybody can give a property away.  Only a few can sell it in record time at full market value.  It pays to know what the market is doing so you know how to price it, and it pays to select the Best Realtor you can find to market it for all your home is worth.

Buyers are doing their homework.  We don’t have a declining market.  We have a very stable market, and that’s always a fun time to buy and sell, if you do your homework.

If you’re buying or selling, call the Ellis Team.  We have the latest stats as we study the market.  We also have the marketing beef, so if you need your home sold fast and for top dollar, Brett and Sande are the ones to call.  239-489-4042 Ext 4.  Or visit www.LeeCountyOnline.com to find your home in paradise, or find your home’s value.

Ellis Team Weekend Open Houses

Open Saturday 1-4 PM Island Park Village

Affordable Island Park Village Villa with Garage

17655 Village Inlet Ct  $120,000

Open Sunday 1-4 PM  Paseo

4 Bedroom Paseo Home

11204 Adora Ct  $529,000

Esperanza Neighborhood Paseo Gated Community

Open House Sunday 1-3 PM

2 Bed 2 Bath Condo With Marina

16150 Bay Pointe Blvd Unit B208 $175,000