Seller Information

Selling your home is a very important decision and should be given serious consideration. Here are some importatant steps to Take before Selling Your Home.

1. Motivation for Selling: There are many good reasons why a homeowner should sell their home. It is important to make a honest assessment of your true motivation, especially in a distressed market as we are in right now. Some of the many reasons why someone should sell their home are: Family is growing and current home is too small, job transfer, downsizing, loss of job or other financial difficulty that making the current mortage payments is too much of a hardship, divorce, advancing age to maintain upkeep or climb stairs, etc.

2. Selecting a Realtor: When you are selecting a Realtor to list and sell your home, there are 4 areas one should consider which are: Experience, Track record of success, Powerful Internet Presence, Integrity and Truthfulness, and how comfortable you feel with this person.

Experience is an obvious criteria. There are a lot of things to know with regard to contracts, inspections, neighborhoods, negotiations and more. You also want to make sure if you need to sell your home as a short sale, that the Realtor has adequate experience in the process and protects your best interests. Additionally, whether you are purchasing your next home at $150,000 to a $900,000, you want to make sure your Realtor has some experience under their belt…

Today, more than 85% of all home seekers begin their search for a home to buy on the Internet. If you want your home to receive maximum exposure to ready, willing and able buyers, make sure your Realtor has an effective and aggressive Internet marketing strategy.

Integrity and Truthfulness are obvious character traits that you want in your Realtor, but not easy to determine. The first thing to look for is the honesty an agent will tell you regarding condition, location and price. Many agents just want the listing so badly that they will tell you exactly what you want to hear with whatever price you select, with no regard for the market. The mentality here is, “I’ll just take the listing, then we’ll work on getting it reduced later.” This is a huge mistake since your biggest share of buyers are in the first 30 days when your home is listed and you end up losing out on the initial buyers who would have seen your home but the price is too high.

3. Preparing Your Home For Sale: There are many no cost and low cost things a homeowner can do to greatly improve the marketability of your home. Try to look at your home through the eyes of a potential buyer when you’re preparing it for sale. Here are some of the more common and valuable things one can do that are free or very low cost:

• Curb Appeal. Feed, mow and water your lawn regularly. Plant colorful annual flowers near the door, and make sure you weed and trim the rest of your garden. Wash the windows and pick up any trash. Keep the garage door closed, no matter how spiffed up your garage is.
• Fix-up: Perform any needed repairs on the interior or exterior of your home. Fix, paint or cosmetically enhance anything that might hinder a sale. Patch any holes or cracks in the walls and ceilings. Replace the toilet seat and shower curtain. Fix ripped window screens. Replace cracked or broken panes.
• De-clutter, De-clutter, and De-clutter! This means all rooms to make them appear and feel larger. Clear the kitchen counters of items you don’t use daily. Rent one of the storage units if need be. If you can’t afford it, pick a portion of the basement or garage to box as many things as you can. Also, sometimes re-arranging furniture can make rooms look roomier or removing some of the furniture.
• Clean, Clean and Clean! Vacuum your carpets, or have them professionally cleaned. Clear and polish all smooth floors. Clean the oven, stove, refrigertor, ceiling fans. Clean the bathroom throughly and hang fresh towels every day. I can’t stress this enough because even if you have the home priced correctly, in the eyes of the buyer, if they see dirty carpet with stains and black caulking around the bathtub, they think the home needs too much work and move on to another home. Bad odors from pets, smoke, cooking smells and musty basements can absolutely kill a sale no matter how well it’s priced. Remember, buyers these days are very picky and have lots of homes to choose from.

4. Pricing Your Home: It is very important to price your home correctly. Obviously pricing it too low leaves your hard earned money on the table. The harder issue is pricing it too high. This causes your home to sit on the market far too long and the longer your home sits, the buyer will interpret it that there is something wrong with your home. Here are the basic items that affect the value of your home:

• Location: Is your home located in a desirable area that is in demand, or does it back up to a busy street or is it on a busy street with a lot of noice and traffic. Location is probably the single most important factor in pricing your home.
• Condition: A house that has been better maintained and shows better will always sell for more than one that has deferred maintenance and needs work. Current colors, rather than outdated ones, will affect pricing. Odor will also play a huge part that will affect value.
• Size and Floor plan: The overall square footage and number of bedrooms, baths, lot size, basement or no basement, garage size all directly relate to the value of your home. Also, how the home is designed and flows from one room to the next can also have an impact on value.
• Amenities: If a house has amenities that are currently popular in the marketplace, it will bring a higher price. Spacious Kitchens and Master Suites, Granite Counter-tops and Great Room are all features that currently sell well.

5. Marketing and Negotiations: As we mentioned above, a comprehensive and aggressive Internet Marketing Plan is a must in today’s modern market. Buyers today look on the Internet first even before they call a Realtor so you want to make sure your home is advertised where the buyers are. Homes marketed on the Internet should include multiple photos, maps, school information, detailed descriptions and more.

A tough negotiator can save you $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 or more. Make sure your Realtor has battle-hardened negotiation experience so you can obtain top dollar for your home in any market condition!

If you have any further questions or know someone that does or are interested in selling your home, please feel free to EM at: jaynesellsyourhouse@gmail.com or call me at 616-291-1673