How to Sell Your Yellowknife Home in 2024
Well, it’s almost Christmas. Not exactly peak listing season, but it is a peak of a different sort. The holiday season is the time of year when people re-evaluate their exercise regimens, their careers, their hopes and dreams and their living situations. And although we can’t be certain about this, on the heels of this summer’s wildfire evacuation, this may be a year when more people than usual choose to list their homes for sale. What makes us think this is the case? Well, the fact that our new Premier, in one of his first speeches after being appointed to the position, was commenting about un uptick in Hay River departures since the evacuation, is a strong indication. Our contacts in the South Slave are telling us there may be as many as 20 homes for sale privately in Hay River right now (there aren’t any Realtors in Hay River and therefore no MLS).
And if we look at the current market in Yellowknife, there are already signs that there will be more listings on the market in the spring of 2024 than we are used to. We have 32 MLS listings on the market in mid-December 2023, which is more than three times as many as the end of December 2021 and 2022.
What does this mean for people thinking of selling? It means that they are likely to face more competition for buyers than they are used to.
Given this, there are two key pieces of advice that we can give people. First, try to be ready to list your home earlier in the year than you might otherwise have been planning to.
April, May and June are the peak months for home purchases, but in balanced markets, which is what we are likely entering, January and February are, statistically speaking, a slightly better time to list your Yellowknife home. The main reason for this is that although there are fewer buyers in the market than in the spring there are also far fewer listings to compete with. For a wide range of reasons, not everyone is in a position to list in January or February, but those who can should seriously consider doing so.
And the second piece of advice that we can give people is to put extra care and attention into preparing your home for sale. Buyers are becoming choosier these days, and that’s especially true in a balanced or buyer’s market (as opposed to a seller’s market). They aren’t interested in taking on as many DIY tasks as past generations, and they have a hard time looking past cosmetic considerations that once upon a time wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow. And this is where your Century 21 Realtor comes in. Every home is different, and homeowners often become desensitized to minor details that potential buyers will pick up on, and which we are trained to notice. At our brokerage, we pride ourselves on providing customized advice for staging your home for sale, and we’ll work with you ensure that you get your home in ship shape prior to listing. And the sooner you reach out to us, the better the results will be. Contact us today at prospectrealty@century21.ca or contact a member of our team directly, and we’ll set you on the path to maximum profit in 2024.
Thinking of Selling? Think Century 21!