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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. 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.
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 not worth the money saved on commissions.
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, attend a few open houses and watch
the professional in action. Do you think this person would present
your house well to potential 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.
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 sell your home on your behalf 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.
3. Get Your Paperwork Together
When you meet with your new listing agent, he or she will need
a lot of documents from you to prepare your home for sale. Among
the things he or she will want to see are:
•
Pay-off Notice: A letter to the lender stating intention to payoff
the mortgage.
•
Assessments or Easements: If there’s a tax assessment or
easement on the property, documents stating such will have to be
included in the purchase contract.
•
Property Taxes: Proof of property taxes paid.
•
Utilities: Provide a record of the past 12 months’ utility
bills.
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 fall, 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.
5. Market Your Home
Products that sell well usually have a good marketing strategy.
The same can be said for your home. Work with your real estate
professional to decide where you want to advertise. Will the house
be advertised only with a yard sign? Do you want your house listed
for sale not only in newspapers but also on Internet sites like
this one? When can you make your house available for an “open
house” showing?
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.
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.
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 registered. You don’t need to decide anything
until after you’ve seen all the offers. If you do accept
or counter more than one offer, you are required to establish an
order of precedence noting which is the primary offer, followed
by the backups in order. This will help you avoid selling the house
to more than one buyer.
8. Complete the Settlement
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 show
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 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 working condition 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!
I will work with you to make selling your home easier, quicker
and more rewarding. Since
countless variables are brought to the highly personal and emotional
situation of selling a home, I have been trained to play
a decisive role in representing you, the client.
My function is that of an advocate and the ability to
bring
a comprehensive
understanding of complex contractual relationships to the table.
In order to get the highest price possible for your home and yet
have it sold in a timely fashion, an extensive marketing
campaign is an absolute must. I engage in the
most comprehensive plan possible. If you are interested in receiving
additional information about
the sale of your home, please fill out the response
form.
I will follow a step-by-step marketing
program that will provide you with service that is professional
and courteous.
In the end, you will be sure that the price you
set reflects the true value of your home under current market
conditions . . . rest assured that you will be completely satisfied
with your
selling price once I have completed the proper research and evaluation
of your home.
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