Those selling a home in Provo should consider the market. There are many students and recent graduates looking for a place to live. There are also many people moving to Provo for business reasons.

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Selling a Home in Provo

Selling a home in Provo could be all about timing. Because Provo is home to Brigham Young University, you will have to consider the following factors that will affect your ability to sell a home in Provo: whether you are selling or renting your home at the change of the semester, what are the priorities of the market, and what the competition is offering.

Selling your home to recent graduates:

Students who graduate from Brigham Young University who stay in the Provo area to work will be looking for a home. They will probably start looking near the time of their graduation. You will have to decide whether marketing your home to persons who have recently graduated is a good idea. Whether or not it is a good idea will largely depend on the size and asking price of your home (for example, recent grads usually aren’t looking for luxury homes). If you are currently a Provo homeowner, selling a home in Provo isn’t your only option. You may want to consider renting out your home if it is located in the right area.

Renting out your home:

If you don’t want to sell a home in Provo, but prefer to rent it out instead, remember that single students at BYU must live in approved student housing. Your home may or may not be approved. Renting out your home to a young family may be an easier process than renting it out to several single students (and might be easier on your home as well).

If you do choose to rent out your home, make sure that you have a written, signed agreement. You are obligated to keep the home maintained (that means that you must fix something when it doesn’t work, like the heater). If you are moving away from Provo, you may need to hire someone to manage your rental.

The competition:

If you are living in a starter home, you will have to consider the students who have moved into homes, but are moving out of town, or out of state, following a job offer. These people will also want to sell their homes, and they may be more desperate to sell than you are.

Selling a home in Provo—but not to recent graduates:

Of course not everyone buying a home in Provo is a college student. There are many who move to Provo for different reasons. Your home may appeal more to them than to a recent graduate.

Even though you aren’t marketing your home to students and recent graduates you will still want to consider timing when selling your home. Spring and autumn are the best time to sell a home. The weather is milder and yards tend to look their best. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try selling in the winter and summer, it means that you shouldn’t get frustrated if you are trying to sell during those times of year and it takes longer than you had expected.

As you plan to sell a home in Provo, you should not only consider timing but you should also consider your asking price. Finding the right asking price is an important factor to selling your home. If you ask for too much, you might not sell. If you don’t ask for enough, you’ll lose money. Getting familiar with the real estate market in Provo is one way of knowing whether or not your asking price is in the ballpark for selling a home in Provo. If you have neighbors that have recently sold, you may want to find out how much they sold their homes for. A Provo real estate agent can provide invaluable help with this process.

By Clint Hunter

A REALTOR® is a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of REALTORS®