The winter season is notoriously slow when it comes to home sales. But the busy spring sales season is approaching fast. During the slower winter months, it’s the perfect time to make sure that you’re ready to hit the ground running when the spring buying boom begins. Here are four things that real estate agents should be doing during those slower winter months to get ready for the spring home buyers who are going to be swarming soon:

Educate Potential Buyers

Do you have a pool of buyers that are going to be looking for a home in the spring? If you don’t, why not? If you do, now is the perfect time to get them ready for home buying in the spring. You can send out newsletters with information about home loans and how to make sure their finances in good shape to buy a new home. Or you can host a small seminar for potential buyers to share information about buying a new home. Any activities that get your potential buyers thinking about what they need to do in order to be ready to buy in the spring is an activity that will keep you connected with potential buyers and get them focused on buying a new home.

Motivate Sellers To Start Getting Their Homes Ready

Are your sellers ready to put their homes on the market? If not, now is the time to get them started. The spring will be here before you know it and there’s always a lot of work that sellers should be doing to get their homes ready to go on the market. Keep in touch with your pool of sellers and regularly suggest tasks they can do now to make their homes ready to sell. Sent out regular reminders and a checklist of tasks that should be done before they market their homes.

Update Your Open House Kit

The winter time is the perfect time to overhaul your open house kit. Buy new cleaning supplies, stock up on candles, make sure your marketing materials look great and that you have enough of them. Make an inventory and keep it updated. The spring is going to be a very busy season so getting your kit ready to go now will save you a lot of time and stress in the spring. If you have new ideas for ways that you can impress buyers at an open house make sure those items are in the kit. Also, update your kit to include spring items like spring scented candles and other items.

Update Your Promotional Materials

When was the last time you updated your business cards and other promotional materials? Take this time to get new marketing materials printed. Update your website. Take care of all those little things you haven’t had time to do.

Winter can be a tough time to sell homes. But updating your home staging and encouraging homeowners to try some of the hottest Pinterest and social media design trends can do wonders to encourage buyer interest even during the winter. Heading into the winter selling season you will sell more if you use some of these current design trends in your home staging:

Wood Accents

Smart homes are all the rage, but most homebuyers don’t want their homes to look like a cold industrial technology paradise. Adding wood accents is easy and inexpensive to do and it makes homes look warmer and more inviting. Great ways to use wood in your staging include things like adding a butcher block top island in the kitchen, using polished wood furniture in dining rooms and kitchen nooks, and staging living rooms with classic sofas and chairs that have wood accents.

A bolder approach is to create a wood accent wall in the living room or the bathroom to make the rooms like more modern but still cozy. If a home has wood paneling, which has been considered outdated for many years now, changing the color with some paint is a great way to make use of the existing paneling without making the home look dated.

Geometric Patterns

Geometric patterned wallpaper and backsplashes, along with geometric floor tiles, can turn a dated entryway, kitchen or bathroom into a social media ready and buyer friendly feature. Best of all you can use geometrically patterned vinyl decals on existing tiles to get the look you want easily and cheaply. Use geometric vinyl wall stickers to create a showstopping accent wall in the living room. The decals are easy to remove if the buyer wants to remove them but they change the look of the room instantly and cost very little. You can even get custom patterns and colors from sellers on sites like Etsy to create a unique one of a kind look for a home that you’re trying to sell.

Metallic Accents

Metallic accents done with a paint can transform a room. Light bouncing off the metallic accents will make the room look bigger. In addition, in the winter time, a touch of silvery shimmer or burnished bronze can make a home seem cozier, warmer, and more family friendly. Try painting crown molding with a metallic paint for a look that will instantly get buyer’s attention. Another great idea, put in some metallic tile accents in the bathroom to make it look more like a spa retreat. White towels and linens in a bathroom that has warm bronze or copper metallic accents will really appeal to buyers and make an older home look a lot more modern to today’s buyers.

Feeling independent and responsible is a big part of home ownership. The best age to strive for a house is your twenties when you are still much agile so as to retire young.

Buying is absolutely different from renting. If you are considering renting over buying, you need to know what you stand to benefit from buying a house of your own.

Some of The Benefits of Buying Instead of Renting

You stand to benefit the following when you own a home of your own;

1. Personalization and customization of your place
   You now own a house, no more rental agreement to stop you from getting a dog, cat or alligator. you can always tear out a wall, change the bathroom tile to one of your choice. Surely, an improvement made would increase the value of your property if well done. Doing all these in a rental house is not advisable, they only favor the landlord
2. Increase in Value
   The value of homes increases over time, they tend to appreciate with time. When you sell your home/investment, any gain or return on it is yours to keep. But as a renter, it is your landlord's
3. Device for Personal Finance Management
   Being a house owner can be a device for personal finance management. Since you know what to expect on your payments over the year, you can always prepare, plan and invest ahead for the future
4. Being your own landlord
   The thought of owning a home is a great achievement and confident of its own. You can always watch the television late without your parent scolding you, your friends can party at yours without your landlord neither stalking aggressively at you nor banging on your door.
5. Collateral for Bank
   You own a house, you own a bank collateral for loans. If there is a need to get a loan, you might not need to worry about being approved or not as you have a collateral worth the loan requested
6. Extra Cash Flow
   You might not have to worry about working extra hours to get all your expenses catered for monthly, as that can be taken care of if your home as vacant space. Getting a tenant to rent it out to is a stand-by monthly income without stress

So, why not buy if you can afford it now rather than renting?

Thinking of how you might go cashless after buying a house?

Here are some things to do not to go cashless:

1. Vigorously Save For Months (8 - 12months)
   Make sure you save up a large part of your paycheck if you really want to be a house owner at a young age.
   You might want to consider owning and monetizing a blog to help increase your stream of income to be saved
2. Know The Area You Like to Live
   Some people don't see buying a house an option because they are not married and don't know where their spouse would like to live. Trust, if you are single and already own a house, your spouse would see the attribute of responsibility in you
3. Stop Procrastinating
   "Procrastination is the thief of time". If are thinking of having a home in your twenties and you still find it difficult to save up 70% of your income now, you might end up not being able to achieve your desired aim. If buying a house is worth doing at all, do it well.
4. Know How Much You Need
   You can't vividly get a house without knowing the exact amount you need to spend. You need to know if you would need a mortgage and how to get one. Be also aware of the types of loans that exist and see where you fit.
5. Buy a home you know you can afford
   Being approved for a particular amount does not mean you must acquire a house up to that limit.
   Do not buy a house you would not be able to afford nor maintain.

Are you still thinking of renting a home over buying this 2018?

Have a wise rethink and choose the best, tomorrow might be too late.