Welcome to our Home Selling Roadmap! Click on the links below to learn more about the steps involved in selling a home. We hope you find this information both informative and useful in your quest to get your home sold!

The Have Decided to Sell?
 
Perhaps your customer has been thinking of selling your home or real estate in order to improve their circumstances.

Why Do They Want to Sell? Do they want to sell their home in order to move to a different neighborhood, school district, or to be closer to family or employment opportunities? Perhaps they are leaving the area. Maybe maybe they want to move to a country home or back into the city?  Maybe they need more bedrooms or storage? They may even want to downsize. As experienced real estate agents, we counsel our clients to help them understand not only their underlying reasons for wanting to sell, but the implications of how selling might impact their life and finances in ways they might not have anticipated.   As their Realtor, they trust you to guide them through the path of selling their home.  Be attentive to their needs and responsive!

What are the Current Market Conditions? The current real estate market may affect not only how much their home might sell for, but also how quickly. For example, in a buyers market, there are more homes for sale than there are buyers, so buyers have more negotiating power. In a buyers’ market, having an agent with excellent negotiating skills on their side can be instrumental in a successful sale, preserving their sales proceeds as much as possible. In a sellers’ market, there are fewer homes on the market, prices may be increasing and there may be multiple bids on desirable properties. In this kind of market, an experienced agent will help them price theirr home properly and correctly to maximize their exposure and bring them the best market price and terms available within their time frames.   Do your homework!   Before meeting with the client get the comparisons in the area and actually show them a few homes with amenities similar to theirs so they can see if the house equals theirs or theirs falls short.  This helps show your case for the ideal price to sell the home!

What Is Their Home Worth? Has their home depreciated or has it ppreciated? Do they know what it is worth? Pricing their home accurately is one of the most critical decisions they will make and they need the Realtor to help guide them through this process.  Your expertise may make the difference.   On their own, most people tend to overestimate the value of their home. An overpriced home will languish on the market, and worse, may even be actively shown by agents just to make another home look like a better value!  Do you really want another agent to take advantage of your hard work?  As experienced real estate agents, we look at dozens of homes every day and we know at what price homes actually sell for, compared to their original listing price. As you know, we can tell them, generally within an accuracy range of a couple of percent, the price their home should sell for on the market.
 

Prepare to Sell

Creating Curb Appeal: The value of curb appeal is in enticing drive-by buyers to want to come inside the home. The yard should at least be comparable to the neighborhood; the cost of a quick clean up by a landscape crew usually pays for itself through a faster sale near the asking price.  At a minimum the home should be kept mowed and neat at all times.

Should They Make Repairs? A quick coat of paint and other relatively affordable cosmetic upgrades might take years off a home’s appearance. A light neutral paint color has the broadest appeal and may also make rooms look larger. Will undertaking significant repairs prior to putting their home on the market generate the best return, or will selling their home “As Is” in it’s present condition? We can help with that decision. Having a written estimate from a contractor helps alleviate buyers’ fears of the unknown. Allowing the buyer to choose their own contractor relieves you of liability compared to pre-sale repairs, plus they can choose the materials. The seller should consult with you as their agent before spending any money – we will advise them on how best to allocate your budget.

Cleaning Up Their Property: Sellers should keep their property tidy, clean, well-lit and smelling good. You as the agent should look at the home as a buyer will and should recommend how to show it in its best light. Often this requires removing memorabilia that you love but that others may see as clutter. Let buyers visualize their own belongings in the house. Turning on lights, even in the day time, makes the home appear more inviting, cheerful, and even spacious. A professional carpet cleaning can remove stains and odors that they may not notice but are immediately noticeable and often offensive to buyers who don’t smoke or own pets.
 

Disclosures & Inspections? One of your primary duties as a seller's agent is to make a list of anything that should be disclosed to buyers. You should be familiar with the legal environment surrounding disclosures help your seller by developing thorough disclosure documents that will serve both the seller and the buyer in creating a sound and satisfactory transaction. Depending on the condition and age of their home, and the current real estate market, you may need to recommend a termite and pest inspection be done before placing their home on the market. This can help avoid nasty surprises and broken contracts down the road.
 

Showing The Home: It is important for the owners to leave the home while other agents are showing it to potential buyers. We recommend they leave the showing of the home to professionals for several reasons. Buyers are more comfortable discussing the home’s merits and drawbacks with their agent if the seller is not there; they might even feel like they are intruding if the seller is home!  You as the agent is experienced in dealing with others on the seller's behalf and has a fiduciary duty to represent the seller's interests in the best possible way; You do the talking - not the owner! This way, they don’t accidentally volunteer information that your agent could use more strategically during negotiations.
 

Accepting the Offer

Price Isn’t Everything: Price is not always the deciding factor and the first offer may not be final: Your role is to help them sift through all the terms and conditions of the offer(s) they receive to help you create a transaction that best suits their needs. When appropriate, you will help draft up a counter offer in response to an offer that comes up short of their needs. Contrary to popular belief, when presented with multiple offers, the highest price offer may not be the best offer to accept, after all things are considered.

Dealing Objectively and Fairly: Selling a home requires remaining objective and always negotiating in good faith. You will help them negotiate contractual terms that are beneficial to them and fair to the buyer.  You should know how to handle situations including multiple offers and multiple counter offers prior to your going into contract with one buyer, or “ratifying” their offer.

The Deposit: Once there is a ratified offer, the buyer will deposit an agreed upon good faith deposit into an escrow account, reflecting their earnest intention to purchase your seller's property.

Keep it in Writing (counter offers and addendums): Converting all verbal agreements to a commitment in writing signed by both parties clarifies everyone’s intentions and prevents things from being ambiguous, forgotten or contradicted later. We will draft addendums to ther contract that will help them further their selling objectives.

Staying on Track: Real estate contracts provide a series of deadlines for both buyer and seller. Keeping this series of events on schedule ensures a timely and successful close of the transaction, or close of escrow. Upon acceptance of an offer, we will give the buyer a copy of the timeline we will be using to track the transaction, so they will always know what’s next.   Insure your buyer stays informed through the entire process as you meet and satisfy the next timeline event.

Escrows, Inspections, and Appraisals

Title Company and Escrow Holder: In our area, typically the buyer selects the title company and escrow holder, because they are paying for the costs. The title company will research the complete recorded history of the property, to make sure that the title is free and clear of all encumbrances by the date of closing and that all new encumbrances are properly added to the title. You will receive a copy of the “preliminary report”, which we then explain to the seller.

Contingencies: Most purchase agreements provide the buyer with specific amounts of time to inspect the property, review the preliminary title report and all disclosure documents and obtain financing and insurance before they must actually complete their purchase of the property. At the successful conclusion of each of these milestones, the buyer will remove that contingency of their purchase and move one step closer to the close. Or, the buyer may use information they have learned to request a renegotiation of the terms of the contract (often the price). This is when an objective, experienced listing agent can really make a difference by helping them make an informed decision on how to respond to the buyer.

Inspections: The buyer has the right to have a wide variety of property inspections to determine the property’s condition and the cost of any impending repairs or upgrades. Inspections may include roof, termite/pest, chimney/fireplace, property boundary survey, well, septic, pool/spa, arborist or mold. Remember, the seller is entitled to a copy of any of their inspection reports.

Appraisal and Loan Approval: We recommend accepting offers from buyers who have a lender’s pre-approval letter, which is stronger than a pre-qualification letter. Later, the lender will send an appraiser out to the property, to ensure the property is worth the sales price.

Time to Start Packing: We can recommend when it is time for you to start packing, based on our vast experience with transactions similar to yours. Too soon, and you risk having your house in upheaval right when a buyers’ offer falls apart or when we need to begin showing your home to prospective buyers again.