Selling your house takes a lot more effort than ringing up a random agent and sticking a sign in your yard. Your reason for selling and your timeline may both influence your process. Nonetheless, there are six steps to selling your house that can help prepare you for the sale of your home.

The Game Plan

Most people don’t spontaneously decide to sell their houses. In fact, there’s a lot of thought into why the home is being sold. Where will you, the seller, live next? What financial risks or gains are involved with the sale of the property? Is the current market a buyers’ or a sellers’ market? How quickly does the transaction need to take place?

Know why you’re selling, where you’re going, what you need to gain in the sale of your house, and how quickly you need to move. All of these factors influence your home-selling experience.

The Real Estate Agent

You may not realize how significant the real estate agent is in the process of selling your house. Not only will the agent help you price, list, and market your home, but will also help you navigate offers and negotiations, professional services, and contracts.

Finding the right agent involves finding someone who not only has the experience and qualifications you desire but with whom you can easily get along. You’ve got to feel comfortable asking questions, having conversations, and conducting business with the professional with whom you’ve chosen to work. Interview agents, read the reviews and ratings, ask for licenses and certifications, and then trust the agent you’ve selected.

Pricing Your Home to Sell

Pricing your house for sale can be tricky. Because the real estate market fluctuates with real estate trends, your house may be worth more, or less, than what you paid when you bought it. Secondly, you’ve got years worth of memories and experiences invested in the property – how do you price those? Sadly, you don’t. What you initially paid for the house and the memories you made in it have no bearing on how to price your home to sell in the current market.

There are four ways you can accurately assess what your home might be worth to buyers today.

First, you can check with an online valuation calculator. These estimates are often free, can take only seconds to perform, and can give you a very rough and inconclusive guess as to what your home might be worth to buyers.

Next, you can seek out a pre-appraisal for a personal inspection conducted by a professional appraiser whose sole purpose is to determine the property’s current market value.

Third, you can trust your real estate agent’s advice, expertise, and comprehensive market analysis. The market analysis demonstrates the selling price of recently sold homes in your area that are similar to yours in features, style, and size.

Finally, you can personally scout out houses for sale in your area to see how they stack up against the house you’re selling.

Staging Your House to Sell

Staging your house means that you declutter, depersonalize, clean, and polish up anything and everything you can to make the house look in its best condition. There are professional staging companies who can do the work for you, or guides you can follow for successfully presenting your property for sale. Don’t list it until you’ve staged it.

When the house is shown during an open house or personal tours, try not to be home – and take your pets with you. Strangers walking through your environment can be stressful for you and your furry or feathered friends.

Offers, Negotiations & More

Your real estate agent will help you review offers, negotiate terms, and choose the offer that is best for you. When the offer is accepted, the house must be inspected, surveyed, and appraised. These processes satisfy the bank that the property has well-defined boundaries, is in good condition and holds the value the buyer is borrowing.

Turning Over the Keys

You may not be required to attend the closing meeting, but you do need to have turned over the keys to your real estate agent. By this date, your belongings should be removed from the property, and the house should be in as good of condition as it was when the new owner saw it last, or better.

Your real estate agent is the best source of information about the local community and real estate topics. Give The Lise Howe Group a call today at 240-401-5577 learn more about local areas, discuss selling a house, or tour available homes for sale.

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