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Selling a home is an experience many of us will eventually go through. Selling for the first time can leave you just as intimidated as when you were a first time home buyer simply because you are unfamiliar with the process. If this is your first time selling a home and are looking for some insight on the process, you’re in the right place!
Selling a home can be easy. Selling a home for TOP DOLLAR is not so simple. Much more goes into the process, especially if you are looking to get top dollar in the shortest amount of time. Although each home sale is unique, the process for selling a home is pretty much the same outside of a few key details; like when you’re selling to buy, for example. We will cover some of these scenarios in the paragraphs that follow.
Over the span of 23+ years, we have learned to streamline this process in order to get you the best offers for your home. If you are considering selling your home and want a little more information on how the process works before moving forward, read below!
To start with the right foot forward, we always want to know where you are headed before we start marching.
Homeowners can sell property for a number of different reasons, and each scenario can entail a different selling experience, so it is important to know what the motivation for your sale is early in the process. On average, a homeowner ends up moving and selling their home every 5 to 7 years. However, each move tends to have its own motivation, and that is an important factor to keep in mind because it can determine what type of sale is going to best suit your needs.
Homeowners who are looking to upsize or downsize will sometimes choose to stay in the same area / school district, sometimes requiring a Contingent Sale, where the seller is selling his or her current property in order to buy another. This is also known as Selling to Buy, which involves two simultaneous transactions and a contingency for you as the seller to find a replacement property prior to closing escrow. It can be a complex and stressful process, but we help several clients accomplish such moves every year.
Other times a homeowner is moving to a completely different area or simply opts for a Standard Sale, which only involves one transaction, and is much less stressful than Selling to Buy. This post will focus primarily on standard sales, but most recommendations are applicable to all sale types!
Preparing your home for the market is an essential part of our services, especially with the number of buyers seeing homes through video and photos online these days. Selling a home is not as simple as taking some pictures, putting a sign in the yard, and holding a few open houses. It involves several different components, specifically tailored to each home, that must all work harmoniously to ensure the property gets maximum exposure and engagement.
Need help with decluttering? Whether you need a few boxes and an extra set of hands, have a house full of items that need to go, we have the resources in place ready to assist with your needs!
Schedule Management is crucial if you have a time frame in mind for the sale of your home. Let us use our experience to ensure every aspect of preparing your home for the market stays on schedule!
The added benefit of working with The Prestige Team is that one of our Real Estate Professionals is always available to help. No missed opportunities!
From professional staging, pictures, video, and everything in between, here are some things we do to get our listings ready for the market!
Sometimes spending a little money in the right places can give you a big return on your investment. Over the span of 23+ years and over a dozen flip projects, we know exactly how to maximize your investment when fixing or upgrading your home in preparation for a sale.
Although we don’t go looking for issues, taking care of obvious signs of differed maintenance or repairing/replacing items that are not in working order is always recommended. We don’t want these things to scare off buyers prematurely! It starts with the budget you have to work with, but items to consider range from simple things, such as door knobs, plumbing fixers, light fixtures, and paint, to more ambitions projects, such as bathrooms, kitchens, and additions. Even with a small budget, the more affordable items mentioned above can have a significant impact on your home’s presentation, such as painting old kitchen cabinets and adding new hardware.
A cluttered house usually does not show very well. One of the best and easiest ways to really show off your home is to get rid of all the unnecessary items you may have laying around.
Things that clutter your home are usually decorative ornaments, collectibles, family pictures, excessive furniture, toys, and so on. Our rule of thumb is: if you are not going to use it in the next month or two, pack it! You might as well get a head start!
Staging is one of the most basic home selling tips you can do as a seller, yet so many listings on the market today are shown completely vacant or without any prep work whatsoever.
As the saying goes, staging sells! In fact, we believe staging is so important that we include it with all of our listings, FREE of charge. With a warehouse full of furnishings and an on-staff interior designer, we can either work with your current pieces or bring in pieces to create amazing living spaces for potential buyers. This is a win-win for us and our clients, because it gives us the ability to control the presentation of the listing, while enabling the home to sell faster and for more money.
Working with us means we take the guess work out of where to splurge and where to save. Learn more about our techniques on our Home Selling Tips page, or save time and money and Connect with Us today!
Download our “How to Stage a home to sell” guide below!
Lights, (shades, curtains, pillows, toilet seats down), camera, ACTION!
Taking professional photos or video of homes that are not adequately prepped for market adds little or no value to the end result. Doing so will leave you with nice pictures of ordinary looking living spaces. Our strategy is to create amazing, eye-catching living spaces through our decluttering and staging, and use professional photography and video to showcase your home in its best light to the market.
We combine professional photos and video to create cinematic property videos that help promote your home online and through social media. The final touch to a great listing is a captivating property description that accurately describes your home while selling its best features.
Other forms of presentation that we use are 360 Virtual tours and Drone photos and video. Virtual tours have gained immense popularity since the Pandemic, and is a powerful tool for showing your home to buyers who physically are unable to see it. We include a virtual tour as part of our listing services as well. Drone photos and video can help capture a great view or larger property when ordinary photos and video just wont do, but are usually not applicable to every property.
Once your home has been prepped, staged, and photographed, we are ready to hit the market!
We only get one chance to make a first impression, so great care is always taken to ensure your home looks its absolute best before we go ‘live’. If we did our prep work correctly, we should have a property that looks outstanding and is ready to be marketed to potential buyers.
Working with a realtor will allow you to list your home on the Multiple Listing Service, more commonly known as the MLS. This is the portal that realtors use to enter their listings, which in turn feeds sites like Redfin, Zillow, and other popular real estate listing sites.
Aside from the search portals, social media is another powerful tool we use to promote your property. Here is where our beautiful photos and videos will catch the attention of potential buyers. Our social media channels are a constant resource of new listings for our growing local audience. Each listing of ours is also promoted on the front page of our website and has a dedicated property page containing all pictures, videos, virtual tours, specs, and more!
Other forms of marketing include targeted local print marketing through magazines and direct mail, which help us spread the word about your property around your immediate neighborhood!
After we’ve lanched your property on the market, we will start to receive calls and requests from buyers and agents wanting to view your home.
How your property is shown depends largely on your specific situation. For example, if you’re selling an empty home, showings can be relatively simple. We can give other agents access via a Supra Lockbox, which is a key safe that can be accessed only by agents that are registered with the local board. Most of the time, however, the owners still live in the home, so a set schedule can be very helpful for showings.
Open Houses have been dearly missed during the pandemic, as they are one of the best ways to give your listing lots of exposure in a specified amount of time. Thankfully, open houses are back, which means it should be easier to get buyers through the door!
Once our listings hit the market it usually only takes a few days before its time to review offers and select a buyer!
All of our efforts that went into preparing your listing for market come to fruition here, when you are reviewing the offers from motivated buyers wanting to purchase your property.
If we are properly priced and presented, it is usually only a matter of time before the first offer comes in. Our goal with every listing is to receive mutiple offers, because that gives the seller the most leverage when negotiating and often leads to a sale over your original asking price. When dealing with multiple offers, we often steer our clients towards the clean offers, because these will be the most beneficial to the seller, and they are not always the highest offer!
The best offer will vary depending on the seller and their needs, such as a fast close or simply highest and best price. Once you have determined which buyer you will select as the winning offer, we can open escrow and head towards closing day!
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