How much you need to do to your home ahead of putting it on the market largely depends on your budget, recommendations from your real estate agent, and requests from potential buyers. It’s entirely possible that you don’t need to put any work into your home ahead of a sale, especially in an aggressive seller’s market.

In general, it’s advisable to:

• Identify and make any necessary repairs, especially those that could come up during the inspection.

• Clean and declutter so your home feels more spacious. If necessary, move excess artwork or furniture into a storage locker.

• If you’re staging, keep it clean and depersonalized. Removing family photos and personal artwork can help visitors better envision themselves living there.

Deciding whether to list your home for sale before or after you move really depends on the financial risks you’re willing to take and how many inconveniences you’d like to stomach. There are inherent advantages and disadvantages to both strategies.

Moving Before You Sell

The big advantage here is that everything works to your calendar. You can nab the house you want and only have to move one time.

But owning two houses at once means you’re responsible for two mortgages, and the new mortgage may come with a higher interest rate because you already have an existing mortgage. With those financial hurdles, you may feel additional pressure to sell your old home as quickly as possible once you’ve moved.

Selling Before You Move

The biggest advantage of selling before you move is financial. The cash from your sale allows you to put money down on the next home, and you’ll have a better idea of your budget for the next home.

The drawback: You may have to move into temporary housing, which means you’ll move twice—once into the temporary housing, and once into your new home.

As with many questions in real estate, the answer here is an unsatisfactory one: It depends! In the last couple of years in Pittsburgh, we’re seeing houses sell in a matter of days. In general, though, the speed at which your home sells depends on:

• Neighborhood desirability: In the city of Pittsburgh and surrounding boroughs, we see the highest demand for walkable neighborhoods with access to public transit and emerging small businesses.

• Financing availability: Current mortgage rates and market trends influence buyer behavior. Cheaper mortgage rates could lead to an increase in buyers, which could mean your home sells faster.

• Geography and seasonality: In the Pittsburgh region, we tend to see homes sell quickest in the late spring and early summer, when people are most ready to buy. You may experience a slower sales cycle in the winter months.

• Property condition: Although a contractor or house flipper may be willing to buy a fixer-upper at a discount, most buyers want a home that’s in good condition. Some projects are more important than others to buyers, so talk with us about which repairs make sense to complete (or skip!) before you overinvest your time in repairs.

• Home value: Houses that are more expensive often sell slower, especially if your home is priced significantly higher than similar homes in your neighborhood.

• Current market inventory: Real estate largely comes down to supply and demand. If there are fewer homes on the market, your home will sell faster. If the market is flooded with homes for sale, you’ll face more competition.

Your home’s value hinges on a variety of variables! Whenever we value a home, we complete a formal comparable market analysis that helps us narrow in your home’s unique value. This evaluation is based on:

• Location: We start by selecting comparable homes in your neighborhood, which will have the same tax structure, school districts, and access to amenities, giving us a solid base to compare to.

• Square footage and property size: Unlike many markets, Western Pennsylvania does not price at a standardized price per square foot. We do consider total square footage, but also look at usable room count, layout, and size of each room when we adjust for property size.

• Age: Newer homes tend to have greater value, as the plumbing, electrical, roofing, and appliances are likely to last longer, and the home itself may more efficiently hold heat in the winter and cold in the summer. While older homes are valued for their character, we do adjust as needed for the age of mechanical defects such as older plumbing and roofs.

• Home condition: Beyond the mechanical integrity of a home, we also consider finishes and updates, such as size, layout, and condition of a kitchen or bathroom. If we see opportunities to help create updates with a strong return on investment, we’ll discuss these suggestions so you know what projects will have the biggest impact.