Related topics
Thomas Edison, one of our country's foremost inventors, was often called a genius. He modestly said that genius was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. He should know. It took him years of hard work to invent the phonograph. And Edison tested more than 4,000 different filaments before discovering the one he ultimately used in the first practical electric light bulb. Insight helps, but there's no substitute for hard work and planning.
You don't have to be a genius to get top dollar for your house when you sell it. Nor do you have to be lucky, although a little luck here and there never hurts. To paraphrase Edison, lucky sales are 1 percent good fortune and 99 percent planning and perspiration.
If you follow the right steps before you put your house on the market, good fortune may come your way throughout the transaction. You can control the selling process instead of reacting to it on a crisis-by-crisis basis. You can create your own luck. This chapter shows you how to make time your best pal.
Time is your most precious gift. When it's gone, you can never get it back. Some people spend their time wisely; others foolishly fritter it away. Depending on how well or how poorly you use it, time can either be an ally or a terrible enemy during the sale.
In most communities, choosing the date that you put your house on the market is an important decision. Certain periods of each year are predictably advantageous for sellers. Others are just as predictably less than stellar.
Real estate marketing activity isn't flat throughout the year. No matter where you live in the United States, the real estate marketing calendar generally has two distinct peaks and valleys created by ebbs and flows of activity in your local real estate market (see the figure).
The sales peaks are higher and longer in good years, and the valleys are deeper and longer in bad years, but the marketing calendar's relentless rhythm never changes. These seasonal cycles are heartless. They don't care about birth, death, divorce, job loss, or any other life changes that force you to sell. You can't alter the rise and fall of market cycles any more than you can stop the tides. You can, however, use the predictability of these cycles to your advantage. This section helps you identify when the best times are to put your house on the market and which are the worst.
