 Seller’s Guide
Whether you’re planning to sell your property in the next few months or just studying up, there’s no time like now to prepare. If buying a property seems complicated, selling can involve as much responsibilities and expenses.
Here are some common steps to selling your property:
1. Prepare Your Property For Sale
2. Find a Real Estate Professional
3. Get Your Paperwork Together
4. Price Your Property
5. Market Your Property
6. Prepare Your Property for Showing
7. Respond to an Offer
8. Complete the Settlement
1. Prepare Your Property for Sale
Well before you’re ready to plant that “For Sale” sign, there is work to be done to prepare your property for sale.
Remember how keen your eye was to every small detail and defect in the properties you saw as a buyer? Now that door never quite closed properly or that roof you never got around to fixing will be seen by a potential buyer with that same keen eye.
Start making the obvious repairs today. If you plan on doing some improvements before the sale, the best place to start is where the buyers start: at the curb. Potential buyers base a large part of their decision on a property’s initial impression a.k.a. curb appeal. So make your property say something positive. That means stuff like a clean front presentation, well-painted trim, a tidy driveway and parking lot, and a welcoming entryway.
If you’re making these improvements shortly before selling the property, consider painting in neutral colors. Choose the most appealing choices to the greatest number of potential buyers.
Start reducing the clutter inside and outside. When it comes time to show your property, less will mean more. Potential buyers don’t want to see how your property overflows with stuff, how every room feels cramped with furniture, or how the yard is cluttered with things stacked everywhere. So downsize and pre-pack now. This will make preparation for showing your property easier, and will also make your move easier and faster. If tenants occupy the property, then you have a challenge in resolving these items. We have influenced many tenants, and we can help with these types of problems.
2. Find a Real Estate Professional
If you’ve been through the property-buying process, you already know how complicated the real estate business can be. While you can opt to sell your property yourself, it can be time-consuming and often not worth the money "you think" you'll save on commissions. It's a proven fact that a licensed professional can get you more, even after commissions are paid. The primary factor here is negotiating, and having someone (good) to negotiate for you properly keeps you in a position of strength.
So put some thought into the professional you choose, and if you decide to choose us, you will have selected a professional team...not a struggling individual.
3. Get Your Paperwork Together
After you sign the Listing Agreement with us, we will need a lot of documents from you to prepare your property for sale. Here are some examples:
• 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. We can find these issues ourselves, but often the Seller has important supporting documents to explain the issues.
• Recent Appraisal: Only if it is very recent.
• Utilities: be able to provide a record of the past 12 months utility bills. If you can prove that your energy expense will be better than the property down the street you have a selling point. Also, smart investors will automatically ask for documentation like this, so it's best to be prepared.
4. Price Your Property
There are a number of factors that will affect the success of your property sale. They include: location of the property, interest rates, economic conditions, time of year, condition of the property, marketing the property, terms of the sale and accessibility to the property.
Some of these are not within our control – location of the property, interest rates, and economic conditions. You should discuss these items with us to determine what will benefit the sale of this property most.
For example, marketing your property in more innovative ways, such as on the internet, will broaden the pool of potential buyers. You should also ask us about our television and consumer direct marketing programs. Pricing your property properly can make a huge difference in whether a property is snapped up within the first several weeks of listing or sits on the market.
To price a property properly our team will have to study the local market, research comparable properties and consider current market conditions, lease rates, and more. 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 the immediate area surrounding your property:
• 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?
We have the experience to help you price your property at the right price for a sale that benefits you.
5. Market Your Property
Products that sell well usually have a good marketing strategy. The same can be said for your property. Work with us to understand our innovative and effective ways to market your property? Compare this to other agents and we believe your decision will not be difficult.
6. Prepare Your Property for Showing
Now that you've decided with us on the market price and how you will market your home now there’s little time left to get your property ready for visitors.
Now is the time to put on the finishing touches, just like that quick cleaning you do before company comes over for dinner, or the same way you prepare for the biggest deal of your life.
Now leave the work to us. Try to be away from property during a showing, but if you happen to be there when the potential buyers arrive, greet them at the door then politely excuse yourself. Make yourself scarce or go take a walk.
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 proposed offer price, closing date, proposed move-in date, financing, and contingencies that may include an appraisal or sale of the buyers’ current property. Let us 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 received. 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 one is the primary offer, followed by the backups in order. This will help you avoid selling the property to more than one buyer.
8. Complete the Settlement
Once you have accepted an offer to buy your property, expect to make your property available to inspectors and appraiser. After seeing the results of the inspections, the buyer may request additional work is completed before purchase, such as repairing a damaged roof. You should consult with us to determine whether to comply with the buyer’s request or risk losing the offer. It is wise to make some repairs to show good faith in the transaction, thus decreasing your liability.
If you're smart and you really want to sell, you'll consider getting reports up front. This way you can avoid surprises. It's cheap security, and smart negotiating power to know in advance if there are problems.
During this flurry of activity, try to keep your property in show condition. It's easier to keep things in show condition than get them back that way. The Buyer will want to see as neat a property on the final walk-through as when they decided to buy it.
There will be a final walk-through before all signatures are collected and the deal is 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 and vendors of the date to transfer your account to the new owner.
Feel free to contact us if we can be of any service!
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