Tips for Fall(erizing) Your Home in a Buyer’s Market

I bet you thought I was going to write an article about how to prepare your home for the fall and winter months?

It actually is a great time to do that – change your clock back one hour on November 4th, check your smoke alarms, clean the rain gutters, clean the chimney flue, change the air filter on the furnace, for example!

But for now, I’m going to comment about the “BUYERS’ MARKET” . . . and why I’m currently not jumping up and down for joy.

Fact is, buyers (at least in my area) are NOT out in force.

This is troubling. I suspect the gloom and doom spiraling through the media with the mortgage meltdown, the mortgage mess, the mortgage crisis, the sub-prime mortgage debacle, and predictions of foreclosures going up have buyers thinking: How will this affect me? Will that happen to me?

Buyers are taking a very cautionary wait and see approach.

Perhaps, buyers are waiting for rates to readjust again? Perhaps, it’s the change of the seasons? Perhaps the anticipatory emotions that surface when we think “holidays?” Perhaps pricing is too high? Perhaps . . . a combination of all things!

In my local area – the Metro Portland, Oregon market – we had NO summer this year. We went from Spring straight into Fall without the wonderfully long summer, which typically lasts well into mid-October. Weather, I am convinced, is playing a very big part in buyers’ stagnant moods in my local area, and it’s putting a very big “damper” on their motivations.

The fall and winter markets are typically slower selling times because of the changes felt around us. Granted, there are wonderful regions in our national market with balmy skies, and those lucky southern states with their Snow Birds! I remember being a child growing up in SUNNY, Southern California, and swimming on Christmas Day, temperature was tipping out at 82º.

Since I have lived in the Great Pacific NW for about 20 years, the weather does change . . . hmmmm . . . except for this year. The perpetually gray sky doesn’t help trigger sunny, bright and cheery thoughts.

Let’s do a quick review: The “bad” news broke in August. For those areas prone to seasons, fall has begun, winter is within our cross hairs . . . even the TV shopping networks are selling holiday themed baubles.

Sellers are waiting and waiting and waiting . . . no buyers!

As simple as this may sound: Now is the perfect time to take a hint from Mother Nature, and make like a leaf . . .

Take the gloom out of buying! Find yourself a good fall coat, some sturdy rain boots, a nice folding umbrella . . . oh, and a Buyer’s Agent. Better yet, find an EXCLUSIVE BUYERS AGENT

Don’t forget to visit me online for BUYER TIPS:

And visit me on the web: EBA Portland

Next week’s article: “What Sellers Should Do In a Slow Market”

P.S. The Fed is expected to lower interest rates again when they meet at the end of October