Listing your property for sale is although the first step in the property selling process, sometimes this journey needs to start months earlier before setting a price and listing your property. And, the most important step in this regard is choosing the right time for selling your house.
Well, to determine if you should sell your home or wait a little longer, we’ve left some clear footprints for you to follow!
What Is The Right Time For Selling Your House?
Deciding whether to set the “for sale” board on your house can be the most overwhelming experience for some people, especially when a seller is looking for another abode alongside. However, what if the offers are hitting home, but you’ve not considered real-life circumstances or your financial situation? So, here’s a comprehensive checklist to determine if you’re all set to sell your house and move into a new one:
- House Resale Value
- Equity Surpasses Liability
- Growing Family Requirements
- Recent Job/Business Relocation
House Resale Value
As the evergreen adage in the real estate market goes: “buy low, sell high”, which should be enough to explain the importance of waiting for right the time when you are getting the most value for your home. If you’ve ever studied economics, you should be aware of the “supply & demand” rule. Don’t worry, if you’re not – the law of supply applies to the property market and favours a seller when supply is low compared to the demand in the market.
Hence, the rule mentioned above is already enough for you to determine a ripe time to sell your home, but don’t forget that the real estate market tends to be volatile. So, it is always smart to take help from Zameen Listings – Pakistan’s most trusted property portal – to witness the demand and supply curve for selling or buying a property.
Equity Surpassing Liability
It leaves no doubt that finding the right time to sell your home is a big deal, don’t let a deceiving middleman tell you otherwise. It requires more than just scheduling an open house and opening your doors to potential buyers. Hence, homeowners need to bring experience and confidence to the table to handle this process, which is only attained through financial stability.
The easiest way to calculate your equity is when your liabilities and debts are either paid off or are lesser than your fixed or liquid assets. Here’s a simple formula:
Market Price of Property – Liability = Total Equity
Now, liabilities may include mortgages, loans, debts, and other legal responsibilities that are somehow associated with the property and the owner. Additionally, it is no wonder to have negative equity and being underwater even if the real estate market seems hospitable to sellers. The negative balance is a clear indicator that you’re not financially equipped to sail the property boat, and it is clearly not the right time to sell your house.
In such cases, you can also consider renovating your home to stay under your budget and to lift up the market value of your property.
Growing Family Requirements
The most important reason and the right time to sell your house is when the family has started to outgrow the available space, or the current house doesn’t meet space requirements. It is quite common to come across such a situation in Pakistan, where a home that was once great for a small family falls short when the family starts to grow both in age and in numbers.
Basically, if your lifestyle has seen some drastic shifts and it isn’t fundamentally similar to how it was when you moved into your current home, it is the high time that you start anticipating a move and think about selling your house.
Moreover, if you’ve determined the right time to sell your house, you should also be prepared for it both financially and emotionally. To begin with, if you are short of funds, you can also opt for buying a used house to cut down the financial ordeal.
On the other hand, selling the place where you grew up or got married could play emotional tricks on you – but don’t let this experience resist you from stepping into something bigger. It’s just a small part of selling your home, so you will have to prepare yourself and chant “let it go” until you get over it.
Recent Job/Business Relocation
It may not be one of your priorities, but a majority of people like to live near commercial areas, or at least where they are working for convenience and mostly for cutting down transportation expenses. Also, it completely makes sense to sell a house that is situated in or near isolated neighbourhoods. Plus, homeowners in a welcoming country such as Pakistan prefer living in mixed-use communities that are generally close to public spaces, commercial zones, and mass transit.
So, if you have recently got a job offer that requires you to commute more, you can think about selling your home and moving to a new one that’s located closer to your new place of work. As simple as it may sound, a job or business relocation is one the most crucial real estate decisions, so we recommend thinking about it from all possible angles.
To put it all together, there are several factors in play while deciding on when to sell your house, but to determine if you’re ready to take this venture, consider the number of factors mentioned above and weigh them against your personal reasons. Let us know how we can help you in this process at blogs@zameen.com. Subscribe to Zameen Blogs – Pakistan’s #1 advocate for property matters – for more real estate solutions.
