7 Steps to Selling Your Home

1. Look at your home’s first impression from a buyer’s perspective

When selling your home, walk outside and imagine the house as if you were seeing it for the first time. How does it look? Is the visual of your home inviting you inside or putting you off? Does it look like a home someone would want to buy, right now?

Now tour the inside of your home as though you have never been there before. Is the entry a good representation of the rest of the home? Can you walk from room to room easily or is “stuff” in your way? Do the colors work well together, including floors, walls and ceiling–and are they clean? When you walk into the kitchen, can you see the counter tops? Are the stove and cook top clean? When you walk into the bedrooms, are they light and do they make you want to sleep there? Does each room function as the home was designed to function, such as the family room offering an area of multiple purposes? Does the dining room have table and chairs, and will the recreation room offer space away from other living areas?

2. Check out homes for sale in your neighborhood

• Are there any homes for sale or a lot of houses for sale?
• How long have they been for sale?
• How many have sold in last 12 months, 6 months and 3 months; is there a trend?
• How does your home compare in size, age and condition?

If you can’t find similar homes to yours in your neighborhood to compare, try a larger geographic area.

3. Determine what your home is worth

Best method is to hire an appraiser to come and look at your home (costs hundreds).

The second best option is to have a couple of real estate agents value your home (free).
Third option is to use an automated market valuation (AMV). Many online sites give a mathematical estimate using sold data and square footage. We also offer a comparative market analysis report.

4. Choose a Real Estate Agent

At this point you have talked to one or more real estate agents to help value your house. Choose the one that will do the best job of representing you to the market place. You can judge this based on how many homes they have sold over the past 12 months, 6 months and 3 months. Review how they market a home, and how will they keep you informed of what is going on. Do they have a team working for you or systems that help them stay on task? Learn more about why you should choose a Washington Realty Group real estate agent. Sign the listing agent agreement and set a date to start marketing the home; (If you choose an agent based on the lowest commission you might as well skip this step and the next few steps.)

5. Prepare house for sale

Get a home inspector. A home inspector will give you a list of items that need to be fixed. Your agent should give you a list of inspectors to choose from.

Knowing what will need to be fixed will give you an idea on what sort of mortgage options will be available to buyers. If you want more financing options for buyers then make the needed repairs to meet those requirements or if you do not want to make repairs then have money available for the repairs during the closing or expect to receive lower prices.

6. Prepare home for Showing

Clean and de-clutter.
Make the home functional and keep it that way.

Make it look bigger (minimal items in a room will make it look bigger.) Get rid of things you do not need or will not use for next 60 days: place them in storage, sell, give, recycle or put in garbage. Since your house is about to be sold and you will be moving, this is a step you will soon be going through.
Learn how to live in a home to keep it in showing quality all the time.  This will make selling you home ready to sell while it is on the market.

7. Go over Marketing Plan for Selling Your Home

Take quality photos and videos of your house; try to use days when the sun is out and there is as much natural light as possible. Photos are going to be the first thing people notice when they are looking online. Having a lot of quality photos will help to sell your house.
Go over what marketing materials your agent will create or they will have created by professionals.
A day before the house is to go on the market have a “For Sale” party, invite neighbors and friends. This lets them know you are going to be selling your home and they might already have people in mind who want to buy a home in the neighborhood.

 

If you have questions about your selling you home, contact us for a free consultation.