How to sell your home in the dead of winter

SMART MOVES: ELLEN JAMES MARTIN

Are you planning to sell your home during the normally austere period at the opening of the year? Don't hesitate, says Mark Nash, a real estate broker and author of the forthcoming book "Real Estate A-Z for Buying & Selling a Home."

Many prospective home buyers wait several weeks after their holiday bills are paid before venturing out on a property tour. But, as Nash points out, every season has its determined buyers. "Depth-of-winter buyers are especially assertive," he says.

Whether 2007 will indeed prove a strong year for home sales is subject to debate among housing analysts. Skeptics note that many prospects are nervous about the stability of home values, citing the large volume of unsold properties in many communities.

"For those who hold prime properties, any time of the year is the right time to sell — including the dark winter months," says Joan McLellan Tayler, a real estate author and former realty company owner. "Some homes are so exceptional they're snapped up quickly under any circumstance. Others can take longer to move in the winter."

Here are several tips for homeowners on making the most of a post-holiday sale:

Pick a listing agent who has weathered several post-holiday cycles. Whether or not you're selling in a popular part of town, Nash says it's especially important to hire an agent with an established track record. Occasionally, a sage agent will suggest that a home's sellers briefly defer an early-winter sale because of adverse market conditions. But Nash says most homeowners should resist the urge to postpone.

Though it's tempting to wait for the early-spring selling season, Nash says homeowners should remember the costs connected to hanging on. If you must move due to a job transfer, a divorce or some other life transition, don't underestimate the costs of keeping up a vacant house. Not only must you meet your mortgage payments, but also your insurance and utility bills.

Let your interior lead the way to a quicker wintertime sale. After New Year's Day, your first challenge should be to remove any remaining remnants of holiday decor. "Holiday decor says to buyers that you aren't prepared to move out so they can move in. It clutters and detracts from the home," Nash says.

Once the decorations are gone, Nash urges homeowners to go on a cleaning crusade, purging the property of superfluous items and then rendering it dust- and spot- free.

Homeowners without a design-trained eye might consider investing in the services of a property "stager," a professional who helps rearrange and augment the sellers' furnishings for maximum appeal to visitors.

Lighten the look of your walls. For several years, America has had a love affair with forceful hues in homes. And many owners are happiest living with high-energy paint colors — the kind they see used on the home-redo shows they watch on TV.

"But most sellers forget that marketing a home is not the same as living in one," says Nash, who stresses the importance of freeing a home of its heavy paint colors before attempting to sell. Also, avoid using bold paint colors when repainting.

When repainting your walls in preparation for a sale, you needn't pick sterile white to lighten and neutralize your look. Good choices include linen-like tones with just a hint of another pleasing color, such as yellow, brown, green or blue.

Generate talk about your wintertime sale. Clearly, excitement is in shorter supply for many people during January and February than in the weeks leading up to the winter holidays. So it's often helpful for you and your listing agent to use a creative marketing strategy.

Nash, who sells homes in the Chicago area, tells the true story of one Illinois couple whose listing agent was stumped on how to attract home shoppers to what he describes as their "blah house" when it went up for sale last February.

What finally worked was a "Garden of Eden" theme, in keeping with the fact that the homeowners were avid gardeners. Though their flowerbeds were buried in snow, the agent asked for photos showing their flowers blooming in summer. These were enlarged to poster size, mounted on tall easels and placed next to windows throughout the property.

"The 'Garden of Eden' created buzz among neighbors, real estate agents and horticulture groupies in the darkest days of early February. I think we all loved the break from winter; it was so bright, hopeful and cheery," Nash recalls.

No matter the time of year, creative marketing won't make up for an overly steep price tag or a property in poor condition. But it can help tantalize shoppers and their agents into seeing a home they might otherwise have ignored.

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