Should Home Sellers Stand Out or Wait it Out?

As the spring market heats up, sellers considering listing need to decide if they should make their homes stand out from the crowd or wait out this busy time. Both options come with pros and cons, and the best choice could depend upon the homeowner's specific needs, restrictions and particular goals.

Standing out from the competition can certainly put doubts to rest. However, this route takes effort and in most cases, funds. A home that buyers choose over others is typically move-in ready, priced right and located in a desirable setting. If the last two criteria are met, sellers need only concentrate on making the property move-in ready. Cleaning, repairing, neutralizing, decluttering and adding curb appeal all fall under this category. Staging is also an effective tool here. The object is to show a home's best attributes while detracting from any potentially negative qualities. Few resale homes on the market are truly move-in ready by buyer standards, so this is one sure way to dominate the competition.

If your neighborhood is saturated with listing after listing or you simply don't have the resources to prepare your property properly for market, you could wait until buyers are less enthusiastic. While it sounds nice that you could just put a sign up in the yard and hope everything works out, this strategy could backfire. Interest rates won't hover at such low rates much longer, which means many buyers are getting in while they can. If you wait until the inventory pool decreases, the buyer pool may also decrease during that time.

So which option works best for you? Can you afford to wait it out and see if the market holds steady as inventory diminishes? Or will you go full steam ahead and make your house appeal to buyers so that it sells quickly while buyers are abuzz?