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Preparing to sell your home can feel overwhelming, but armed with the right knowledge and strategy, it becomes an exciting journey toward a successful sale. From planning and pricing to closing and moving, each step is critical in maximizing your home's value and ensuring a smooth transition.
In today's dynamic real estate market, these crucial tips for modern home sellers provide invaluable insights and guidance, empowering you to navigate the process with confidence and achieve your selling goals.
You should begin preparing your home months in advance to get prepped for a buyer.
While you want to make improvements to the house, be cautious of not doing too much. You want to end up in the sweet spot where your house is as nice as the other homes in the neighborhood but still competitively priced.
Some updates that can help sell your home but won’t cost you too much are repainting, decluttering, landscaping, and minor repairs.
Before putting your house on the market, you will want to find a REALTOR®. They are experts in the market and can help assist in the entire selling process, answering any of your questions.
It is essential to find the perfect REALTOR® for you. You can do this by using Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association’s find a real estate agent tool or getting recommendations. Once you have a REALTOR® in mind, ask them some critical questions to ensure it is the right fit.
Ask questions to assess their experience better and how they can help you. This is also a great chance to get to know them and make sure you like who they are as a person because you will be working closely with one another.
The best part is that REALTORS® have endless resources, and they’re bound by an ethical code of conduct that many independent “real estate agents” aren’t required to abide by.
When selling your home, you need to consider its value because while you want the best price possible, it may not be worth it to the buyers. Pricing depends on the size of your house, the neighborhood it is in, and the demand in the market – a REALTOR® will be able to give you up-to-date insight on pricing.
While considering the value of your home, there are multiple factors you need to take into account. Luckily, your real estate agent can help you navigate pricing to ensure you don’t ask for too much and drive away buyers or ask for too little and leave money on the table.
Your house is clean, and the perfect price has been selected; now it’s time to put your home on the market. Before conducting an open house or posting pictures online, you will want to remove any clutter and personalization like family pictures or your kids’ toys.
Multiple steps go into marketing your home, including reaching out to brokers and buyers’ agents and creating listings. Your REALTOR® will help you stage and sell your house to attract the perfect potential buyer.
When doing “showings,” you want to make sure your home is available to buyers and that you are not there. While you may be tempted to stay around to see who is looking at your home, it can make it harder for the buyer to take in your home and picture themselves in it fully.
Congrats, you got an offer or several, and now it is time to evaluate which one is best for you. Your REALTOR® can help you make sure they are a qualified buyer and access the different factors of their offers. Some of the factors to consider are how close to the asking price is their offer, are they getting loans, and if they are asking you to make any repairs.
Once you have finished assessing the offers, it is time to discuss negotiations with your REALTOR®. You can accept an offer, decline an offer, or make a counter-offer. Make sure to determine what aspects are a priority because you may have to compromise on some.
You have picked a buyer, and contracts have been signed, but it isn't over yet.
First, there needs to be a home inspection where the buyer has someone come in to check that the home is up to the standards claimed in the contract. Some buyers will ask for additional inspections for termites, mold, asbestos, or radon gas.
Then comes the appraisal to determine your home’s market value. While you cannot raise the price if it comes out higher than your selling price, the buyer may ask for renegotiations. That is because if the appraisal comes back lower than the sales price, the lender makes the loan that amount.
Finally, you make it to the settlement, also known as closing, where you determine the date the deal will be closed and payment details disclosed.
As soon as you decide to put your house on the market, you should begin planning your move. You can use our Moving Center, which provides calculators and the information you need to make your move seamless.
While you can breathe easy knowing your house is sold, you still need to make many decisions. For instance, you need to decide what movers you want to use, what furniture you want to bring with you, and how many boxes you will need.
To help make the process of moving into your new home more accessible, set aside a box of things you will need right away, such as money, medicine, as well as your kids’ –– and your ––favorite items.
Sellers often see homes For Sale by Owner as a way to save money because they do not have to pay commission. They don’t realize that it is a lot harder than it appears, and it is likely they won’t sell their home for as much.
While there is always a possibility you might make a little more by selling your own home, the extra stress it will add to your move may not be worth it. Instead, save yourself time and headaches by having a REALTOR® with years of experience and training by your side.
You probably have an idea in your head of how much your home is worth because of the memories they hold, or you want to have enough to buy your next home. However, before you get ahead of yourself, you need to remember that multiple factors go into the value of your home. The most important being the buyer.
While you can’t be sure how much a buyer would pay, you can get a good idea by considering several factors, including conducting a comparative market analysis. Some of these factors include the size of the home, number of bedrooms, and bathrooms. The home’s proximity to schools, shopping, and entertainment should also be considered when pricing.
Your REALTOR® is your advocate in the selling process, so you must pick someone you trust and like. The first step to finding the right agent is to make sure you see someone involved for the long haul and does this full-time.
Next, you want to ensure that they know everyone you will need along the selling process, including a lawyer, lender, and interior designer. Finally, you want to make sure they are local. This way, they have good insight into the local market and are available when you need them.
While you may think it is better to start your price high and lower it if you have to, research shows that is not always the case. So how do you determine the cost of your home? Talk to your REALTOR®.
Your REALTOR® should provide a comparative market analysis that takes into account the pricing of nearby homes that have been sold recently, as well as ones on the market now. They will look at how many days it was on the market and if the sale price was the same as the listing price.
There are many questions surrounding appraisals, so here are a few facts to help clarify what they are and how they work. An outside third-party certified contractor hired by the lender does appraisals. Check that they have experience with multiple lenders to make sure you are receiving a fair assessment.
Appraisals often take a few hours or less and turnaround time is usually within a week. The cost of your appraisal depends on the property value and is regularly paid by the buyer.
