Selling your home—especially if you’ve never done it before—can be surprisingly time-consuming and emotionally challenging. Strangers will come into your home and poke around in your closets and cabinets. They will criticize a place that has probably become more than just four walls and a roof to you, and then, to top it all off, they will offer you less money than you think your home is worth. With no experience and a complex, emotional transaction on your hands, it’s easy for first-time home sellers to make lots of mistakes, but with a little know-how, many of these pitfalls can be avoided altogether. Read on to find out how you can get the highest possible price for your home within a reasonable time frame—without losing your mind.
As you are preparing to sell your home, there are hundreds of things running through your mind at once. From thinking about moving to your new home to coordinating everything you need to begin selling your home, this is a busy time. Before you jump in feet first, check out these costly mistakes to avoid when selling your home, to help ensure you receive as much return as possible on your home.
Steps to Selling a House
There’s more to selling a house than finding an agent and tidying up for open inspections. Here’s our guide to the step by step process of selling your property to help you get ready to list your home.
Tips for selling your home FSBO. So, you’ve bought another home or found out you’re being transferred to another city or state, and you need to sell your home fast! You can sell your home FSBO-style in 30 days or less, provided you follow some simple but important steps. Begin by preparing your home for sale and assembling your marketing material. Your house must be ready to show before it is listed.
One of the most important steps to selling a house is determining the right price — the price that will let you sell in a reasonable amount of time, for a profit that you’re comfortable with.
Pay the bills for the home
Of course, you need to constantly learn and improve your own education level, but you also need to develop the skill to educate others. Whether it’s teaching a first-time homebuyer about mortgages or a savvy investor about the internal rate of return on an income-producing property, you need the skills to be able to convey your message effectively.
A sure-fire way to end up in financial trouble is by failing to budget when downsizing. Make sure you leave enough money to pay the bills and home and content insurance of your current home, as well as the costs of your new home or rental. To cover the period between selling and buying a new property, look into getting a bridging finance loan. As it can take up to 90 days for funds to process when you have sold your home, the loan can cover you for this three-month window, or longer if necessary. Check with your agent or mortgage broker to see if you need to apply for a loan.
Most home sellers are buying a new home with the equity from the home they’ve sold. Timing this just right is tricky — move out too soon, and you might be paying two mortgages and two sets of utility bills, property taxes, etc. Then again, if the new home hasn’t closed by the time your old home sells, you’re looking at paying top dollar for temporary housing. Talk to your real estate agent about how to time your home sale and home purchase to minimize your excess costs. We’ve helped hundreds of clients transition into town and know all the tips and tricks needed to make it go smoothly.
First-time home seller guide
When you sell your home, it’s natural to want to get the highest return on your investment at the closing table. For that and other reasons, some intrepid homeowners prefer selling their house without a realtor.
Selling your home can be overwhelming and sometimes sellers aren’t sure what to do and when to do it. This can certainly create a lot of unnecessary stress. In our latest article, we provide sellers with a “home selling checklist. ” this list provides a step by step guide on exactly what to do and when to do it. We also provide some great tips and advice throughout our home selling checklist.
Go Through Everything in the Home
When it comes to selling property, there are a variety of different methods and strategies you can use to achieve the highest price. One of these options is to work with a real estate agent to sell a home by tender. Selling by tender can be beneficial in that it allows the seller to offer a broad price range, rather than advertise the home with a pre-determined price.
If there are any obvious conversions – adapting the garage into extra rooms, or going up into the loft – and you have some spare cash, why not take advantage of this cash cow rather than letting the new owners make easy money out of improvements. Significant home improvements are expensive, so it’s important to consider how your plans will add value to your home. Our recent research with the federation of master builders and estate agents from the guild of property professionals has identified 10 home improvements that also add value to your home.
What follows are some dos and don’ts for selling your home efficiently.
Get the Home Ready to For Market
Selling your home isn’t as easy as putting up a for-sale sign and waiting for the offers to roll in. In fact, a lot of prep work goes into getting a house on the market. Read these articles for everything you need to know about how to get your house ready to sell, even while juggling factors like tenants, kids, pets, relocation, and stress. Whether you’re working with an agent or selling your house by owner, these pointers should inform your approach.
Make yourself and your knowledge available to the community by hosting mini-seminars. Consider providing a basic 101 seminar about the basics of home buying and mortgages. Remember, marketing today is all about inbound, and that doesn’t just apply online. Users want you to share some of your knowledge for free before investing time and money in you. A home buying seminar is the local equivalent of a webinar. Yes, it will take time and energy, but attendees will walk away impressed and will have established a relationship with you. That relationship will be worth its weight in gold when they’re ready to shop for a home.
There is a difference between getting a home ready for the market and making a ton of upgrades to increase the sale price. Getting the house ready is practical while making expensive improvements rarely plays out well. No matter how much money you put into your home, make improvements that increase your return on investment. For example, updating insulation might get you more in value than you initially paid. On the other hand, if your gut and renovate the master bathroom, you will pay thousands more than you will receive in increased home value.
Hire a Top Producing Real Estate Agent
The number one reason a home doesn’t sell in real estate is that the property is incorrectly priced. There are lots of different reasons why homeowners incorrectly price their home and it’s important the first time home sellers don’t make those common real estate pricing mistakes. First time home sellers often have no clue on how a listing price is determined in real estate. There are many different ways a listing price can be determined and it’s important that you understand the various ways. The most common real estate pricing practice is a comparative market analysis that is completed by a real estate professional. A comparative market analysis, also commonly referred to as a CMA, can be summarized as a review of local active homes for sale, past home sales, and also past expired listings.
Understand the plan – you can minimalize risk by understanding the plan. Identify who will be responsible for showing the home (you, your agent, the buyer’s agent) and how they will obtain access. Do not use a hide-a-key or even a combination lock-box, as you have no idea who ultimately knows the code. Put your home on a schedule – whether you go it alone and sell your house “for sale by owner” or you hire a real estate company to sell your home, you should understand the plan for access to your home. On the one hand, you need to make access as easy as possible so that you can get buyers to see your home (when their schedules allow), but on the other hand, do not make it as simple as “just stopping by.
Did The Seller Die in The Home
When listing your home for sale, cast a wide net for potential buyers. Pricing your home properly from the beginning is imperative. Some sellers can let their emotions dictate their selling price instead of relying on their real estate agent’s expert opinion and market data — and that can be a big mistake. According to studies, nearly 60% of homes nationwide sell at or above the listing price when they accept an offer in the first week. In the second week, however, that drops seven percent and continues to trend downward as the weeks go on.
By this step, you’ve looked and liked the house, you’re pre-approved, and studied the clue report front to back, but before you submit the offer, you might want to go through this quick step-by-step process. Buy a manila folder. Fill it with market comps of similar homes. Comb through them all. Look at the seller’s asking price. Weigh it against the comps in your folder. Make an offer. Await their reply or potential counteroffer. Decide to either accept, counter back, or leave the battlefield.
During the selling process, there is a lot of paperwork. Consider all of its legal documentation and make sure it’s filled out correctly. On the seller disclosure, homeowners are asked about certain aspects of the home. Usually, they are directed to check “yes,” “no” or “do not know. ”some sellers think they can avoid delays with the inspection process by marking “no”. This can backfire and cost a lot of money. If a seller falsely states the good condition of something, and they are actually answering incorrectly, not only could it kill the deal, but even after the sale, the buyer may have grounds to seek remedies against the seller after closing. Avoid all of this by being honest about any information requested on the seller’s disclosure.
Complete home improvements
Repairs and improvements are completed. Pest control work, if any, is completed. Mandatory requirements are completed. House is clear of extraneous possessions and, if appropriate, staged. Various inspection reports are in hand. We complete yet more paperwork, including local, county, state, and federal requirements. House should be thoroughly cleaned, including windows inside and out.
If your home has been listed for sale for a long period of time, you likely have received some consistent feedback about what people like and don’t like about your home. If you have consistently received feedback that some various improvements would be appreciated, it would be a good idea to complete these projects if they are reasonable in cost. These improvements could not only lead to a quicker sale but may also result in a higher sales price.
Intelligent sellers weigh the cost of potential improvements against the property’s value after upgrades and repairs are completed. If an improvement yields little or no return on investment, the repair may not be warranted. Before deciding to pay for repairs, investigate the other properties in and around your neighborhood. Compare the condition and amenities of these homes to yours. Bear in mind that baths and kitchens offer the highest returns. If the properties in your market have upgraded kitchens, you might want to invest in yours. This doesn’t mean spending a fortune on high-end cabinets and appliances. A minor remodels with new paint and new hardware might do the trick.