SELLING
Whether you’re planning to sell your home in the next few months or just studying up for that eventuality, there’s no time like now to prepare. If buying a house seems complicated, selling involves even more responsibilities and expenses.
*Seller's Guide
*Sell Now?
*Setting a Price
Seller’s Guide
Here are some common steps to selling your home:
1. Prepare your home for sale
2. Find a real estate professional
3. Get your paperwork together
4. Price your home
5. Market your home
6. Prepare your home for showing
7. Respond to an offer
8. Complete the settlement
1. Prepare Your Home for Sale
Well before you’re ready to plant that “For Sale” sign in your front yard, there is work to be done to prepare your home for sale.
Remember how keen your eye was to every small detail and defect in the houses you saw as a buyer? Now that door to your bedroom that never quite closed properly or that leaky faucet that you never got around to fixing will be seen by a potential buyer with that same keen eye.
Start making the obvious repairs today – even if you don’t plan to sell until a year from now. These repairs can cost money and take time. Plus fixing it now will allow you to enjoy the results before it’s time to move out.
If you plan on doing some improvements before the sale, the best place to start is where the buyers start: at your curb. Potential buyers base a large part of their decision on a property’s “curb appeal,” so make yours say something positive. That means a tidy front yard, a house with well-painted trim, a tidy driveway and a clear, welcoming entryway.
Inside, the biggest return on your investment continues to be improvements to the kitchen, followed closely by improvements to the master bedroom. If you’re making these improvements shortly before selling the house, consider painting and decorating the rooms in neutral colors, the most appealing choice to the greatest number of potential buyers.
Inside and outside, start reducing the clutter. When it comes time to show your home, less will mean more. Potential buyers don’t want to see how your closets overflow with clothes, how every room feels cramped with furniture, or how the yard is difficult to maneuver with that rusty swing set in the way. So downsize now; it not only will make the preparation for showing your home easier, it also will make packing for your move faster.
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2. Find a Real Estate Professional
If you’ve been through the home-buying process, you already know how complicated the real estate business can be. While you can opt to sell your home yourself, it can be time-consuming and often For-Sale-By-Owner homes sell for less because it's a numbers game (the more buyers that see it and like it, the higher the price).
However, if you do hire a real estate professional as your selling agent, do your homework. Ask friends and family for recommendations, interview several candidates, ask for a marketing committment in writing, and call their past clients.
When interviewing a candidate, ask him or her to prepare a “comparative marketing analysis” for your house. This might include a demographic of the neighborhood, the quality of schools in the area and a suggested list price for the property. Review it closely to make sure it is well-thought out.
Once you’ve chosen a real estate professional to help sell your home, you’ll have to sign a contract stating that you’ll work solely with this professional for a designated number of months, often between one and six months. This means no other real estate professional will be allowed to represent you during this time.
So put some thought into the professional you choose. The right agent will help you sell your home in a timely manner and at a price that benefits you.
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3. Get Your Paperwork Together
When you meet with your new agent, he or she will need a lot of information from you to prepare your home for sale. You’ll want to make it clear now which items in the home you want to take with you – the heirloom chandelier in the dining room, the washer and dryer set you just bought last month – and which can stay behind as part of the home sale. Your real estate professional can help show you which items you should put away or replace before your house goes on the market.
4. Price Your Home
There are a number of factors that will affect the success of your home sale. They include: location of the home, interest rates, economic conditions, time of year, condition of the home, marketing the home, terms of the sale and accessibility to the home.
Some of these are not within your or your selling agent’s control – location of the home, interest rates, economic conditions. The other factors are items you should discuss with your real estate professional to determine what would benefit the sale of this property most.
For example, marketing your property in more innovative ways, such as on an Internet site like this one, may broaden the pool of potential buyers. If you can, waiting for a good time to sell your home – spring or summer, the most popularly home buying times – also may help it sell faster. And pricing the home properly can make a huge difference in whether a house is snapped up within the first several weeks of listing or sits on the market for more than a year.
To price a home properly, you and your real estate professional will have to study the local market, research comparable properties and consider current market conditions. This is where the “comparative marketing analysis” you requested when interviewing for a listing agent will come in handy as a place to start.
Now check around your neighborhood, your newspaper and Internet sites like this one for:
• Your competition: Are there many properties just like yours for sale in your area right now?
• Listing prices: What are other properties like yours listing for?
• Selling prices: What are other properties like yours selling for?
Based on these findings, your real estate professional should have the experience to help price your property at the right price for a sale that benefits you.
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5. Marketing Your Home
Products that sell well usually have a good marketing strategy. The same can be said for your home. If you've hired an excellent agent, they will have a robust marketing plan. In addition to in-home promotion (the house looks GREAT and you've got a great flier), you'll want to have dynamic and comprehensive approach: Internet advertising, agent awareness, direct mail, open houses, and newspaper advertising. Newspaper is, by far, the least sucessful avenue but we aren't yet at a point in time where it can be abandoned.
When a potential buyer arrives for an “open house” or drives by and sees the For Sale sign, you’ll want to provide a home profile handout that they can take with them. Decide what information should be included in the description of your home that will make it a must-see – and hopefully, a must-buy. Include one or more photos of the home to showcase the most appealing features of your property and help remind potential buyers of what they saw as they visit home after home.
You may even want to include a few lines about benefits of moving to this property, such as good schools, convenience to mass transit and other desirable community features.
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6. Prepare Your Home for Showing
You’ll be thrilled that you did the hard work of Step 1 (Prepare Your Home for Sale) now that there’s little time left to get your house ready for visitors.
Now is the time to put on the finishing touches, just like that quick housecleaning you do before company comes over for dinner.
Outside: Keep your lawn trimmed, the rose bushes pruned, the weeds tamed. Put away the garden hose and the tools. Make sure the bulbs in your home’s exterior lighting fixtures are all in working order. Be vigilant about removing flyers, handouts and newspapers left on your front doorstep or driveway.
Inside: Brighten the rooms by opening the drapes, turning on the lights, cleaning the windows. Clear the clutter on the kitchen counter, bathroom sink, coffee table and couches. Make all the beds. Clean all your bathroom and kitchen fixtures. Do a quick vacuuming of the entire house, being sure to catch any cobwebs in the corners along the ceiling. Finally, take out the garbage.
If you have pets, find a safe place to keep them during a house showing: in the garage, in the basement or at a friend’s house.
Now leave the work to your real estate professional. Try to be away from home during a showing, but if you happen to be home when the potential buyers arrive, greet them at the door then politely excuse yourself. Make yourself scarce or go take a walk. It’s easier for a buyer to picture himself or herself living in the house when you’re not there. This is your home’s time to shine.
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7. Respond to an Offer
Depending on market conditions, you may receive one or more offers for your property from interested buyers. Each offer will include the sale price, proposed closing date, proposed move-in date, financing, and contingencies that may include an appraisal or sale of the buyers’ current home. Let your real estate professional help you sort through the variables to determine whether you should accept, counter-offer, or reject the offer.
If there are multiple offers, each offer will be presented to you in the order submitted. Your strategy on how to respond in a multi-offer situation really depends on the quality of the offers. A great agent is worth their weight in gold at this stage! Don't stress out - this is the fun part! This is what you've all worked so hard to achieve.
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8. From Offer Acceptance to Closing
Typically in CA, a buyer will have 17 days after acceptance to get loan/appraisal approval and fully inspect your home. Within the first 17 days, the buyer can usually cancel the contract and get their deposit back. Typically, if they cancel after the 17 days (when they remove their contingencies), then you may keep their deposit. Your agent will go over this thoroughly with you when offers are first presented.
Once you have accepted an offer to buy your house, expect to make your house available to a housing inspector, a termite inspector and an appraiser. After seeing the results of the inspections, the buyer may request additional work is completed before purchase, such as repairing a damaged roof or fixing a leaky faucet. You should consult with your real estate professional to determine whether to comply with the buyer’s request or risk losing this offer.
During this flurry of activity, try to keep your home in showing condition. The deal has not closed and still may fall through, which may mean showing your home to more potential buyers.
In the meantime, the buyer is working with a lender to secure a loan for the purchase. When the buyer has written loan approval, a final closing date can be set.
There will be a final walk-through before all signatures are collected and the deal considered done. The buyer will go room by room to check that everything is in the condition it was when they made the offer and, if you had agreed to do so, any additional work requested after inspection is completed.
Now you can prepare for your own move, notify your utility companies of the date to transfer your account to a new address and start packing. Congratulations, you’ve sold your home!
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Have any questions? Feel free to contact me, ask me anything.
What I will do for you
Recent Home Sales
Getting the highest price
Closing Costs
- Complete a comparative market analysis that will compare your home's value to that of your neighbors.
- Compile a comprehensive plan detailing all the efforts I will employ to sell your home, including Internet and local media.
- Present your home to as many qualified buyers as possible getting your home maximum exposure.
- Help you stage your home and generate curb appeal to ensure you get the highest price.
- Assist with obtaining offers and help you in negotiating the best deal as smoothly as possible.
- Help you find your next home and answer all of your questions about the local market area, including schools, neighborhoods, the local economy, and more.
What are homes selling for on your street? Use HomeRadar.com to find out what neighborhood homes are selling for, free of charge, or choose a more detailed analysis of the value of your home.
Getting the Highest Price for Your Home
Curb appeal is key and could make a difference whether people stop and take a flyer, or drive right by. Here are a few tips to increase the curb appeal of your home. Staging your home is important. Many buyers will stay in your home longer if it's staged appropriately. I have compiled some ideas to present your home in the most effective manner.
- Title insurance fees depend on the sales price of the home.
- Broker's commission is a full-service fee and will cost anywhere between 5% to 7%.
- Local property transfer tax, country transfer tax, state transfer tax, and state capital gains tax are the charges that you'll pay for the privilege of selling your home. Credit to the buyer of unpaid real estate taxes for the prior or current year are variable and depend on when you close and when your taxes are due.
- FHA fees and costs are all fees are now negotiable between an FHA buyer and seller.
- Home inspections fees are in some circumstances paid for by the seller and include pest, radon and other inspections.
- Miscellaneous fees can accrue from correcting problems noticed during the home inspection.
