The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we look at our social lives, our work environment, and especially our finances. Our instinct is to hunker down and save up, not taking any risks until the lockdown has lifted and everything goes back to normal. However, this may not be the best strategy.
In Los Angeles, due to its climate and desirable real estate, there’s no “bad” time to sell, but the current market is an ideal time to sell a house quickly. If you know how to make the most of the current market, you can find a reputable home buyer to fix up your property and flip it quickly. No matter your situation, home buying solutions are within your grasp if you know where to look.
Read on to learn how to take advantage of the Los Angeles real estate market, even during COVID, how to prepare your house for a quick and easy sale, and how to find a home buying company that will give you the options you need to get out of your old home and into your new one.
Why LA is Ideal to Sell a House
Los Angeles provides incentives to buy houses, from job opportunities to alternative neighborhoods. You may be worried about how the quarantine has affected the market, but things are looking good for sellers right now.
According to Norada Real Estate Investments, the number of home sales has dropped during quarantine, but the prices have stayed up, rising 11.6% in the last few months. Across the board, the six-county LA region has seen price rises from around 12-13% over this summer and early fall. The median home price reached nearly $950,000.
What this means is that the notoriously lucrative Los Angeles market shows no signs of slowing during the quarantine. House prices continue to climb in the current market, making this an ideal time to sell a house.
Knowing this is an ideal time to sell, the question becomes: how do you prepare a house for a quick sale in Los Angeles?
Pricing for the Current Market
As stated, the Los Angeles real estate market can move houses quickly at a high price. However, you still want to make sure you get the highest value possible for your home. Pricing is a huge aspect of selling a house in any market, but there are specific statistics relevant to the Los Angeles area that should change how you approach this sale: the low inventory and high prices.
The low inventory means that buyers will have fewer choices. Research shows that pricing just below your assessed market value is the best way to get a house sold within a couple of weeks. Just remember that in a high-value market, overpricing is easy and underpricing is impossible. A house priced under its value will sell fast and a house priced high in a low-volume market will have a tough time finding a buyer.
This is true during any market conditions. But right now, buyers far outnumber sellers because most homeowners believe this is a bad time to put a house up for sale. This is only one reason why you need to get ahead of the curve and put your house up while the market demand is high.
5 Reasons this is the Perfect Time to Sell a House
We already talked about why Los Angeles is the perfect market at any time of the year, but now we’re going to go over 5 reasons that now is a particularly great time to put your house up for sale.
1. High Buyer Demand
No one was buying houses when the COVID quarantine started. This is the main reason many homeowners believe that it’s still not a good time to sell. However, the market conditions are different than they were a few months ago.
The reason is that the quarantine restrictions are slowly lifting, which means that everyone who was delayed from looking for a new house for the last 6 months is back on the market all at once. The influx of buyers gives anyone with a house to sell the advantage of a more competitive market.
This is especially true if your house is in a smaller city or suburb since many people are moving to remote working status and want to get out of big, expensive urban areas.
2. High Home Prices
Basic economics should tell you this one: since buyer demand is high, prices are up too. The national average price for homes is higher now than it was before the lockdown, with buyers looking for options in a market where the seller is at a huge advantage.
It’s easier now to get maximum value for a home that it has been in years.
3. Low Home Inventory
With all the buyers coming out of their homes at once looking for new living arrangements, home inventory was bound to decrease. However, the false assumption that now is a risky time to put a house on the market has further lowered the number of available houses for sale.
There’s one more thing you may not have thought of: with the government postponing penalties on mortgage payments and debts due to financial stresses from COVID, there are fewer distressed properties than ever before, such as those that go up on the market after the owners default on their mortgage payments.
The nation just came out of a period of sparse inventory last year and it’s even more pronounced now for these reasons. With such a low inventory, your home is bound to stand out to buyers, which is yet another reason why you can price it high.
4. Low Interest Rates
Mortgage rates are at historic lows right now because of the reasons mentioned above: high buyer demand, high prices, low inventory. This means that the demand to buy a house now is even higher because people want to take advantage of the current market.
Low interest rates mean even more buyer demand from an already understocked market. For those thinking about putting a house up for sale, now is the time to take advantage of these conditions before the market opens back up and demand returns to normal.
5. New Living Standards
The COVID-19 quarantine has changed many aspects of life, including our expectations for work. Many people who have spent more time in their homes these last few months have discovered things about their living arrangements that have changed the way they view them.
For instance, many people who are working from home now and for the foreseeable future aren’t happy with their homes. While it was fine as a place to eat and sleep, spending considerably more time there has prompted many people to become home buyers and look for a situation further from big urban areas with more comforts.
As a result, more room, including private spaces and larger yards, is becoming more important to homebuyers. This is a huge reason why, if you plan on taking advantage of the current market to sell your house, you need to know how to take advantage of your buyers’ new living standards.
Anything you can do to make a house seem more spacious will increase its demand in the current market. Read on to learn some easy fixes you can do to your property to increase its value, attract more buyers, and get more for your sale.
Tips to Increase the Value of a House
It should be clear by now that now is the time to sell. But how do you prepare a house to take full advantage of the current market and sell it at its maximum value?
Here are the refurbishments that are worth your time and money to make sure you can get the most for your house.
- Basic repairs involve cleaning the house, pulling up old carpet, and making it look presentable. Making sure all the doors and windows function is a great way to make a fixer-upper more appealing.
- Removing clutter is a great way to make a house look newer. As mentioned, roomier houses are in higher demand now as well. If you have extra furniture taking up space, piles of tchotchkes lining every shelf and table, or equipment and junk in the yard, you can increase the perceived value of your home at no extra cost just by cleaning up.
- Choosing colors to match your needs as a seller rather than your preferences as a resident can increase interest in your home. This means that even if you prefer muted color schemes, you should switch it up to make the room feel brighter and livelier. Even if you can’t afford new furniture, simply buying bright accent pillows could help.
- De-personalize your home so that buyers can imagine themselves living in it. The simple act of removing all your personal photos can increase the demand for your home in subtle ways.
- Use photography to your advantage. Since photos will define your listing, they will be the draw for prospective buyers to become interested in your property. Take advantage of your property’s strengths and the work you’ve done preparing it for the market by hiring the right photographer.
How to Use a House Buying Agency
Not every home seller has the time to do all the above. For some homeowners, the important thing is a quick sale. The right refurbishment can increase the value of a home before it goes on the market. But a reliable house buying agency can do these things for the home as part of the buying, fixing, and flipping process.
Since they know what goes into a house to maximize its value on the market, they’ll be able to pay you for its value quickly, with a simple offer process that prioritizes your needs.
Selling on the market can be a difficult game, even after you’ve maximized the value of your house with easy fixes. Companies that buy houses quickly will work with you even if you have a fixer-upper: they specialize in repairing and flipping houses to take advantage of the profitable market in LA.
As a homeowner, you can also use these companies to avoid buyers that will try to squeeze a deal out of you. Buyers sometimes throw insincere offers out there just to test the waters and it can be frustrating for someone trying to sell their house quickly. A house buying agency only makes offers that they plan to keep. They’re also flexible with their closings depending on each homeowner’s needs. The right agency will work with you, no matter how long or short you want the closing process to be.
The Takeaway
The instinct of many homeowners during the COVID quarantine is to stay safe and wait to sell their home until the world resumes normal operations. This is one of the reasons why now is the best time to sell. Since the restrictions are slowly lifting, the low inventory has produced a market with a surplus of buyer demand and higher prices. More houses in Los Angeles are being sold at a higher value than they were before the pandemic.
A house buying agency that buy fixers, flips them, and sells them for competitive prices in the current market offers homeowners the perfect opportunity to get top dollar for their homes without worrying about the hassle of selling. Whether you fix up your house yourself or let the agency do it, a fair offer in an extremely competitive market will be more to your advantage now than it will be in 6 months.
To take advantage of a seller-centric real estate market and get the maximum price for your home, sell while the market is still recovering (but not fully recovered), the buyer demand is still high, and the number of houses on the market is still low. These perfect conditions won’t last forever, so contact a local house buying agency today to get appraised and sell quickly, even if you are selling without a real estate agent. You can even get moving resources to help you translocate.