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 and expenses.
Here
are some common steps to selling your home:
1. Prepare your home for sale
2. Get your paperwork together
3. Price your home
4. Market your home
5. Prepare your home for showing
6. Respond to an offer
7. 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. 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.
3. 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 you or your listing 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 or realtor.com, 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, 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” will come in
handy as a place to start.
•
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 sold for recently?
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.
Be reasonable about the price you set. You will always be better off
setting a fair market value price than setting your price high expecting that
someone will come along and be willing to pay it. If your home stays on the
market too long because it is overpriced potential buyers may think that
something is wrong with it and you may end up selling it for less than what
you could have gotten if you had started out with a realistic asking price.
4. 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? One of the best advertisements that I do is to actually advertise to
all the realtors in the Tampa Bay area; they are the ones with clients that
are ready to buy right now.
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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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!
