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.
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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