Don't underestimate autumn home sale potential

By Alisha Alway Braatz
Inman News®

If I had my way, each year would officially start in September.

The heck with Jan. 1! Who's even awake in January?

You've just finished gorging on pie and cured meats for two months. That's the time to fit into a sparkly minidress and stay up until 3 a.m.? No thank you.

I prefer to celebrate the coming new year in September -- the month when everything really important happens. Fall is for the first day of school, fresh notebooks, new shoes, empty backpacks and chocolate milk.

It's simply the season of change, and nature herself confirms it. Leaves start changing color, the air gets crisp, and all the hanging flower baskets around my house die because I forget to water them (so sorry!). Football kicks off, root vegetables begin showing up on the dinner table, and all the best TV shows are back in the prime-time lineup.

September is also the month when folks who've had their home on the market during the summer question whether to cancel their listing. Conventional wisdom says the window of opportunity passes with the summer sun and only the homes of "desperate" sellers remain for sale after the first day of school.

I hear it all the time from sellers, "We'll list our home until school starts." It's not a decision based on their needs or desires, but on the idea that buyers looking for a new home will be too busy to find one in the fall, or somehow sellers will fool buyers into thinking their home is a "new listing" in the spring. Tricky, tricky!

Granted, summer is the time of the year where more homes are bought and sold. I get that. But, the market doesn't suddenly dry up and disappear in September! People who genuinely need to move are still going to buy a home. As for "hiding" days on market? Yeah, that really doesn't work. Like, ever.

This autumn is a great time to have a house on the market, says Realtor.org: Inventory is down and so are the days on market. Sellers can overcomplicate the process. But when it comes right down to it, a sale is about motivation and money. Supply and demand. Simple, simple stuff.

Like going back to school, freshly sharpened pencils and new haircuts, real estate is elementary. And always worth celebrating. Go September!