5 Key Things to Plan for Your 2025 Real Estate Move | Preparing for the Housing Market

December's a month when a lot of people start making their plans for the new year and real estate is no different. There are some major planning opportunities available. I'm going to break down the five things you should be thinking about if you're considering a move in 2025 next. So if you get some value out of this, you'll like what you hear. Make sure to subscribe to the channel, hit the bell for notifications. And if you want to schedule a call with our team about exactly how we can help you with these five things or something else, you can do that with the link in the comments. There's a saying out there that proper preparation prevents poor performance. And it is very apparent in the housing market, the consumers who are not prepared. You don't start thinking about things in advance. We don't have a plan in place. They end up being flat footed when opportunities arise in the market. I don't want that to happen to anybody. So what I put together was the five things you should be thinking about right now in terms of understanding them, getting all your ducks in a row, getting all your plans in place. So you're ready to transact at any moment in 2025 and that will enable you to buy the right home or take advantage of the market or be ready to go. Once you get the news about a new job or a relocation package, proper planning will help you. And here's the things people don't think about. And it's something we can guide you through when it comes to real estate. So number one is the financial component. If you're thinking about transacting in 2025, we know that the vast majority of sellers, they got to go buy something else and home buyers obviously want to have all their financial pieces in order. So you want to be asking yourself questions like, is there anything funny on my credit report? We've got great lenders that can help you with that. Do you have the cash on hand? You need to close. Do you know how much money you need to close? Because down payment is a very important item. The more important item is cash to close. That includes closing costs, tax escrows, prepaid items, things that a lot of people aren't aware of. Do you know where mortgage rates are right now and where your monthly payments going to come in? Because when you can qualify for something, that's nice. It still may be out of your comfort level or your budget, or you want your monthly payment to come in. Getting your financials in order well in advance of buying a home are going to be really important. Credit reports can have funny line items on them. Maybe you need your 2025 tax return to be filed. If you're an independent contractor, you're 1099. These are all things you want to be talking about now. So when that right opportunity comes up, you can jump on it and make a move decisively and definitively without asking yourself a whole bunch of questions or running around like it's a, like it's a fire drill or an emergency. You want to have this stuff done. Number two is the process. When it comes to buying and selling real estate, there are processes that win. For all my Philadelphia friends here, you're probably hit sick of hearing, trust the process. The process in real estate works. There's a process to making an offer, to getting pre-approved, to getting your home ready for the market, to launching the home the right way because most agents, they just have the thing pop up on the MLS and there's not a lot of run-up. So these processes and these plans, they take some time. And if you don't understand how the processes work, then when you see a house you like, or you're ready to make a move, you're not prepared. Understanding the processes will enable you to make a great decision when the time arises, when the right opportunity is there, when it's your time, because people never know what's going to come onto the market. So understanding the purchase process and the listing process are very important. Number three, and this is specifically for sellers is getting the home ready for sale. There's a lot involved in getting a home ready for sale. If you went over my house right now, it's right after a holiday weekend. It is not ready for the market. That's okay. Most people, their homes are not ready for the market. That's okay. And there's things that may look good for when you have company over or when you have friends over that may not look good when it comes time to marketing a property. So working with a team like ours that has listing managers that are professionally trained when it comes to prepping properties and having them staged for the market, that can be really helpful and it takes time to get a home ready. You might need to organize work. You might need to get some painting done. You might need to get some new carpeting. You might want to get like a winter cleanup done of the property or a spring cleanup, or have this stuff planned in advance with your landscapers. All of these things require some pre-planning. So understanding what it's going to take to get the home ready for the market is really important for buyers and for sellers. You got to understand what you don't like about where you're moving to. And that involves looking at properties in order to find the cherry. You've got to look at some lemons. So whether you're a seller looking to buy something and move or just a buyer looking to find something, seeing what's not good on the market gives you better perspective. Seeing what's sitting on the market will enable you to identify the home. That's really going to work for you. So that's a critical critical part about how this process is going to work. And the only way to do that is go out and look at a few properties, drive through some neighborhoods, understand what the market offerings are. And that little bit of prep work can go a long way. So when you see the right home, you can move definitively on it. Remember we're at a supply right now of right around two months in the suburbs, a bit higher in the city of Philadelphia. There's competition for some of these homes. And if you don't know what you want, you can't identify it right away. You've got to ask yourself that question. How are you going to feel if you miss out on a great home because you weren't ready and didn't know what was important to you? And if the answer is, I'm going to feel pretty crappy, then you want to get out and look at some product. And the last one is to understand the direction of the market. Where are prices heading? We know they're projected to go up this year. Where are mortgage rates heading? We just saw mortgage rates come down a little bit right after the holiday into the 6.75% range locally quoted today, we've seen as low as six and five eights. Do you know where home sales are going? Are there going to be more homes that sell or less homes that sell? A lot of people are predicting more. Do you know what's happening with inventory? Understanding the direction of the market with the key indicators around supply, around demand, around pricing and costs, that's going to help you make better decisions. And if you didn't notice here, there's a lot of stuff that goes into making a move, which is all the more reason to start preparing now in December, even if you're thinking spring or summer is when you want to make a move, because the most savvy consumers, they get all their plans in place now so they can jump in and take advantage of the market when the right opportunities arise.