Selling Your PDX Home in Summer: Tips from Urban Nest

Our Pro-Tips for Selling Your Portland Home This Season

If you’re planning to sell your Portland home this summer, buckle up, it’s about to be a wild ride. After monitoring real estate trends, The Oregonian’s real estate team claims that all “signs point to another summer slog for buyers.” If you’re a seller, this is good news. You can expect bidding wars to remain common, giving you a final purchase price upwards of $80,000 above your asking price.

But selling in the summer isn’t without its challenges. In a hot market with climbing prices, it takes confidence and smarts to make sure your home sale goes smoothly. Not to mention, the season’s hot weather and popularity for vacation both pose additional challenges.

That’s where we step in. At Urban Nest, we’re seasoned professionals who know the local Portland market, and we’re here to help you sell your Portland home this summer. Ready to get started? Here are a few pro tips you’ll want to take to heart.

Tip #1: Keep Your Price Within Market Expectations

One of the pros of selling your Portland home during the summer is that you can benefit from the appreciation in the prior months. In 2018, things are already looking profitable for sellers, as the last Portland record high median home sales price, $395,000, from last June has already been surpassed in March.

There’s nothing to say that sellers can’t get even higher prices this year, but there is one catch. It’s important to keep your home price within market expectations in order to attract a large pool of buyers.

Tip #2: Make Sure Your Home Is Move-In Ready

One of the major complications with selling your Portland home in the summer is that July and August tend to be busy months. Many families are on vacation or they’re looking towards starting a school year at the start of September. For many buyers, it’s important to move in to a new home before the school year begins so that kids don’t have to deal with district boundaries, transfer deadlines, and more inconveniences.

Even though it often takes 30-45 days to close on a home purchase, it’s still possible to list your home in July and have it attract a slew of buyers — even buyers with families who are conscious of school start dates.

So how can you do this? For starters, make sure your home is move-in ready. At an open house or during early buyer negotiations, be sure you’ve done the grunt work and have completed a home inspector report and performed all necessary repairs. Then, you can share a “list of repairs made” with buyers to show them that you’ve tackled any outstanding issues that might delay a quick and seamless move-in process.

Tip #3: Weatherproof Your PDX Home

While July is a lucrative month for many Portland home sellers, it’s important to be aware of the weather’s impact on selling a home in the warm summer months. There’s nothing worse than a buyer visiting an open house for a prospective home on a hot day, and being more preoccupied with sweat and discomfort over the home that they’re seeing.

Our advice? Prepare for the heat. During your open house, take precautions to keep cool air circulating throughout the home. Whether that means turning on the air conditioning or having the ceiling fans at full force, make sure your home stays cool for visitors so that they can envision themselves living at the home, at ease, during Portland’s warm summer months.

Bonus Tip: Mind the Greenery!

During the summer, pay extra special attention to the first impression that your home makes on prospective buyers. Remember – walking up to the front door or driving past the home is often the initial vantage point they’ll have.

Urban Nest Realtor Wren Shiffler notes, “curb appeal is always key, but summertime really allows a property's landscaping to shine!” Make sure you plant drought-tolerant, heat-resistant plants that will stay green without needing too much extra attention. Whatever you plant, you can “boost it with some nice, flowery color pops and contrasting mulch in garden beds. Define your edges,” Shiffler says!

Feeling serious about selling your Portland home? Reach out! We’d love to share more tips to help you sell your home in July.