Julie and Daniel Desrochers from Desrochers Realty Group and EXP Realty stopped by to talk about selling your home around the holidays.

Here is their advice:

• Definitely decorate but don’t go overboard
• Homes often look their best decorated
• You don’t want to cover up features that help sell the home
• Example: you have a beautiful stairway railing and banister but you cover it up with a bunch of garland
• Curb appeal matters, decorating for the holidays is a great way to improve the appearance of your home.
• Add tasteful decorations and lights
• Fit it with your neighborhood
• If the rest of your neighborhood goes all out, don’t be the only house without decoration or if no one decorates don’t go overboard

• In a place like Minnesota it’s very helpful to make the home feel cozy and warm
• If you have a fireplace turn it on or have fire going
• Have the home smelling festive. Simmer some apple cider on the stove or have some pine candles burning
• Make sure all lights are on, including lamps and Christmas lights if you have them up. Especially important with how dark it now gets at
• this time of the year
• Sellers tend to think their homes show better in the spring/summer but most buyers purchase a home based on the emotional feeling they have in the home.
• A lot of people have their best memories happen during the holidays .
• When buyers have the tight emotional reaction when they walk into a home they are more likely to purchase it. Sellers can use this time
• of the year to appeal to the buyers emotions by decorating their home to induce emotions
• If you have a great yard that is now covered with show. Feature some summertime pictures in the listing info online so potential buyers can see what it looked like
• Because of the holidays a lot of sellers take their homes off the market
• This is good for new sellers or sellers that stay on the market as there is far less competition.
• Last November we had around 3,900 new listings hit the market compared to this May where we had around 9,400 listings hit the market
• Best time for a seller to be on the market is when there are no other properties on the market.
• In the spring when there are more homes on the market buyers can be more picky and could pass your listing up.
• Buyers have more time to look at homes.
• We see a big increase of time off of work at this time of year with people using their PTO up, this opens up more time for them to look at
• homes. Time for them to look online and actually go out and view homes
• The buyers that are currently looking at homes are actually serious
• Better to have less showings with serious buyers as opposed to tons of showings with less serious buyers.
• Motivated buyers usually present better offers, could be the only option for a motivated buyer that needs a home
• People take new jobs or transfer jobs at all times of the year and if you are not on the market you could miss that buyer that is
• transferring here from another area