Ready to Sell? Here’s How to Avoid Major Home Selling Challenges!
Ready to Sell? Here’s How to Avoid Major Home Selling Challenges!
Doing the right due diligence can make a big difference in the return-on-investment you can expect on the sale of your home!
Choose the right Real Estate Advisor | REALTOR®. Take your time to find a REALTOR® with an excellent reputation, and mortgage and real estate knowledge and experience. Hire a real estate professional that understands and utilizes the Internet, Social Media, and Social Networking to market your home. This is important because 92% of buyers use the internet in some way in their home search process, 50% of buyers use a mobile website or application in their home search, and 93% of buyers under the age of 36 use the internet during their home search process. Your return-on-investment will be much larger if you list your home with a real estate professional with these attributes and local market knowledge and sales expertise.
Seller preparation is paramount to success. While you may be tempted to put your home on the market without doing required deferred maintenance such as servicing your HVAC, painting, making minor repairs, or thoroughly cleaning your home, your home is likely to take longer to sell. As a result, potential buyers may perceive there is something wrong. Do not overlook seller preparation in today’s hot Texas real estate market, as your resulting sales price is likely to be lower if your home does not sell within the first few weeks after you list your home.
Be prepared for your next step. Should you buy your next home or wait until you sell your current home first? Do you have a Plan B for the sell side and the buy side of the transaction? These considerations are only one part of the preparation you need to make to move. You need a back-up plan in case your transaction on either end takes longer than you think, or happens quicker than you are prepared for, and you will need to understand your mortgage payoff and the closing costs you are going to have to pay.
Curb appeal is a difference maker. Focusing on the outside of your home is just as important as the inside. The view from the street makes a good or a bad first impression, and you want that impression to be a good one or you run the risk of potential buyers leaving without ever entering your home.
A Seller’s Disclosure means peace of mind. The Seller’s Disclosure is like the car lemon law for houses. Buyers and their inspectors WILL find out about hidden problems and defects, and can hold you liable for repairs and damage if you know about them and do not disclose them. Not disclosing issues that you know about at the very least means you run the risk of a long drawn out negotiating period, or worse, a lengthy and costly lawsuit.
Consider a pre-listing home inspection. Depending on the age and condition of your home, and if you have put off deferred maintenance, having a pre-listing home inspection could save you a lot of time and aggravation. You can be aware of potential issues that will come up with buyers, choose to address some or all of those issues on your own time and budget, all before negotiating with a buyer.
Price it right. Ensure that your Real Estate Advisor | REALTOR® gives you a strong comparative market analysis and helps you determine a reasonable listing price for your home. The benefits you can derive from avoiding overpricing your home are time, money, and minimized stress. If you do not listen to your Real Estate Advisor | REALTOR® and base your listing price on an inflated view of your home’s current value, you are very likely to end up taking much too long to sell your home after multiple price drops, and for less than you would have if you priced it right the first time.
Make sure your family and/or pets do not kill a sale. Recognize that while you love your wonderful dogs and cats, and your children, buyers want to visualize themselves and their own family in your home. Ensure that your home is professionally staged, is clean, neat, and de-cluttered, that visible, and non-visible items are well organized, that your home is bright and lighted well, and has a pleasant smell for every showing.
You never know when the eventual buyer is going to come visit your home so take the kids and your pets out somewhere with you during showings, or secure your pets and give appropriate instructions to your Real Estate Advisor | REALTOR® to be included in the showing instructions for prospective buyers and their agents.
Mortgage Pre-Approval is not optional. Make sure that your Real Estate Advisor | REALTOR® communicates the requirement for buyer pre-approval for all offers. Buyers without a pre-approval letter for a loan amount consistent with the value of your home, present a much greater risk for you that the deal will fall through, leaving you with unnecessary stress and additional time delays in your home selling process.
Most real estate professionals prefer to work with buyers who have a pre-approval letter because it demonstrates that they are qualified to receive financing and are serious about buying a home. The lender will base the pre-approval letter on the documentation that the borrower supplies at the time of application. Actual eligibility to receive the loan depends on the terms and conditions of the letter and ability to secure the loan.
The marketing campaign is everything. The best real estate agents use aggressive internet-centric marketing plans to market their listings. Ask your Real Estate Advisor | REALTOR®where and how your home will appear online so that potential buyers and their real estate agents can easily find it.
Ask how your real estate agent plans to actively promote your listing to other agents in and out of the area. The best real estate agents will have an aggressive online marketing campaign that includes their business website, Facebook, and other popular online venues.
If all your real estate agent agrees to do is place a sign in your front yard, add your home to the local MLS, and conduct several Open Houses, then your home is not being marketed effectively to capture the maximum number of buyers.
Bottom Line:
Minimize your stress and maximize your return-on-investment. Complete the GET IN TOUCH form on this page to have a Real Estate Advisor | REALTOR® from Martin Real Estate Advisors | United Real Estate, help you minimize the stress and emotions that come with these common home selling challenges, and maximize your return-on-investment from the sale of your home!