The Home Selling Process
The Home Selling Process
The Home Selling Process
Let's assume that you are clear on what you want to accomplish with the sale of your home, you have set a timeframe in which you realistically want to sell, and you are ready to get going. Let's zero in on the tasks at hand! The following is a list of items you'll want to consider to get you on the right track...
What is Your Home's Value
In Economics, "value" is defined as "the maximum price that a decision-maker is willing to pay to obtain a good." In other words, something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. However, before you give someone the opportunity to place an offer on your property, you want to establish a guideline.
You have to come up with a number that feels right to you, and at the same time, establishes a realistic starting point. Establishing that initial price tag or "value" requires careful research combined with educated guesswork. You can ask your agent to help you with this or you can hire an appraiser.
Reality Check
Once you get the value from your agent or appraiser, you might need to adjust your expectations a bit. The biggest challenge I face with sellers is the belief they have in how special their home is. And how, because of this specialness, they should be able to get a higher price than all the other similarly styled houses on the market.
In most cases, there is nothing special about your house. I know this is hard to accept but let me explain. Your 3 bedroom, 3 bath, granite-counter-topped home with 180 degree views of the mountains is up for sale along with, at any given time, tens, if not hundreds of houses just like it in your local market.
I'm saying all this to say that it is imperative for a successful sale that you have realistic expectations. Before you set a sale price, sit back, relax, take a deep breath look at the hard data, and be really honest with yourself. If you fail to do this, you will only end up shooting yourself if the foot.
How To Price To Sell
Pricing to sell is not an easy task. Let me explain the crucial point you need to grasp before taking your next step. Experience has shown that the foundation of any successful home sale is based on applying the Price versus Value principle. Everything else being equal, price in relation to value is what sells a house. Be very careful and precise in setting this initial price point.
Prepping Your Home For Sale
Here is the short of it - Clean up, fix up and paint up! I always recommend you go for what I call "the three Wow's"
Display curb appeal: when buyers drive up and see the property for the first time, their reaction should be: "Wow, this looks great."
When they open the door, another "Wow," because of how clean and crisp your home looks and feels.
Price the property slightly below the competition. Have the buyer go "Wow" I get all this for "x" amount! Don't forget, after all is said and done, price vs value is the single most important factor in achieving a successful sale.
Marketing
At this point you are ready to take photos and create all your marketing materials, brochures, flyers, business cards, postcards, emails and street signs. Once you have this package together, put up your yard sign with flyer-box, email everyone you know, send your postcards to 100 to 250 of your closest neighbors, post a flyer in the break room at work and create a website and submit it to the major search engines and real estate websites.
Getting An Offer
If you've done a good job so far you should be getting an offer soon. When you do, look it over carefully and see if it meets your expectations. If it doesn't, try to negotiate terms that are acceptable to both you and your buyer. If it does, accept it, open escrow and start the inspection period.
The Inspection Period
Most sellers are afraid of the inspection report - don't be. This is common practice and if you prepared yourself and your home properly you should already know what you're going face. There are three major ways to handle a buyers' inspection;
You can sell the property "as-is" meaning you let the buyers know ahead of time that they can do an inspection but you're not going to fix anything. This strategy is not recommended if you are looking to get top dollar for your home and is mostly used on properties that need work.
You can give the buyers money "in lieu of repairs" meaning instead or repairing the requested items you offer to take "x" amount of dollars off the purchase price against those repairs. The advantage of this strategy is that you don't have to deal with contractors and you don't have to worry about whether the work is done to the buyers' expectations which can be peculiar at times.
You can offer to fix all or part of the repairs requested. This will involve you hiring licensed contractors to complete the work, in most cases buyers will specifically request the work performed by licensed contractors that offer some degree of warranty on their work.
Conclusion
Once you get past the inspection it should be smooth sailing. Just keep an eye on the buyers financing, in most cases this is the only snag that can still spoil the sale.
Good luck!
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