Sell Your Home With Pomerleau Realty Group. Contact Us Today!
Steps to Selling Your Home:
Make Sure You’re Ready To Sell Your House
Preparation is key to a successful sale. Therefore, the first thing you should do to ensure you’re ready to sell your house is taking a thorough look at your current circumstances from financial, emotional, and practical perspectives.
Are You Emotionally Ready To Sell?
Emotions play a big role in selling a home. After all, your home is most likely the place where you and your family have created many happy memories. However, emotions can often get in the way of a successful home sale.
It helps to focus on the end goal: finding the right buyer and closing the deal. Think of the process as selling a house, not your home. It will become easier to look at your property objectively as you remove personal items and start staging to attract buyers.
Are You Financially Ready To Sell?
Take a look at your current mortgage bill or other mortgage documents to find out what you owe your lender. Make sure to include any second mortgage or line of credit you might have as well.
Talk with Pomerleau Realty Group about what your home is currently worth in today’s market.
Once you officially decide to sell your home, Pomerleau Realty Group will be able to perform a comparative market analysis to give you a realistic idea of what your home is worth in today’s market and what your net proceeds will be after your sale.
Should You Sell Your Home Or Buy A New One First?
There’s no right or wrong answer for whether you should buy or sell first. Some people prefer to sell first so that they don’t have to carry two mortgages at a time. Others don’t like the idea of being without a home, which is hard to avoid if you sell before you buy.
If you’re open to doing either one first, look at your current housing market. If you’re in a buyer’s market, there’s a better chance that a seller will accept an offer on their home that’s contingent on the sale of your current home. If you’re in a seller’s market, homeowners will be far less likely to accept a contingency that forces them to wait around.
While you can always try to sell your current home and purchase a new one at the same time, it can be a challenging endeavor.
Hire A Trusted Real Estate Agent
Pomerleau Realty Group can guide you through the home selling process. We’ll help you: set the right price for your home, negotiate offers and walk you through every step.
Good agents will deploy honed negotiating skills throughout the process and therefore tend to get more for your house than you would on your own – so much more that, even after paying their commissions, it’s very likely you will take home more money at closing.
Set The Right Asking Price, Clean, And Declutter!
Pricing is the linchpin to a successful home sale, and the temptation to overprice is strong. Almost everyone believes their home is the exception and will fetch more than similar houses. But that is rarely, if ever, the case.
If you set the price too high, you run the risk of turning off potential buyers. Many won’t even consider seeing a house in the desired location if it’s priced above what the market might suggest.
Overpricing is the main reason homes sit on the market for months, with the price usually coming down to where it should have been from day one. Check out the housing market trends in your area and work with your agent to determine a good price. Pricing your home aggressively in a buyer’s market will often attract more buyers and a higher sale price.
Cleaning and decluttering a home is essential to a successful home sale. Talk with your agent about tips to stage your home for a successful sale. Depersonalizing your home will make it easier for potential buyers to envision themselves living in the home. Professional cleaning offers a great return on investment. Clear out closets, garages, basements, storage areas, and laundry rooms. Getting rid of clutter can help make the areas in your home look more spacious.
Make Repairs
This is the time to fix all those little items that you’ve had on your to-do list for years. Have a latch that doesn’t work, a leaky toilet, or a faulty electrical outlet? It might seem small, but potential buyers may see them as a sign that the home hasn’t been properly maintained. This means more work for them if they buy it.
There is a big difference between making minor and inexpensive polishes and touch-ups to your house and doing extensive and costly renovations. Be careful about how much money you spend. Buyers will be impressed by a brand-new roof, but they aren’t likely to give you enough extra money to pay for it. However, there are some home renovations you can make that buyers will love so much, you could increase your selling price.
List And Market Your Home
Your agent will take a variety of approaches to get buyers exposed to and interested in your home. Here are some of the main tactics:
Pomerleau Realty Group has an extensive buyer contact list and may already have a buyer that fits your home. More than 85% of home buyers start their real estate search online. This is where most of our marketing efforts are placed.
Home listing: Before your home officially hits the market, your real estate agent will create an online listing for your home. This includes all the details about your home for buyers to see. A well-crafted, professional, online profile can really make your home stand out from the crowd.
Marketing: Some of our successful marketing strategies include: marketing to our extensive contact database, 3D virtual tours, professional and aerial photography, social media, and ongoing relationships with other agents.
Home showings and open houses: Many buyers will want to see the home in person before they purchase it. Home showings and open houses provide them the opportunity to walk through each room, test out light switches and faucets and get a better idea of the look, size, and feel of the home, which you can’t do through pictures. In today’s day and age, consider using a 3D virtual tour of your home that will allow buyers to walk through your home without actually visiting the property.
Negotiate An Offer With A Buyer
When selling a home, negotiating is by far one of the most important parts of the process. Pomerleau Realty Group is known for its expert negotiation skills and will work on your behalf to make sure your best interests are represented. We will save you a lot of money in the process.
If you receive a low offer, don’t take it personally. Instead, try to understand the buyer’s motivation. You may learn something important, even if you ultimately reject the offer.
The next step is to make a counteroffer. Consider the buyer’s position and work with your agent to find a middle ground by reducing your asking price or explain how you arrived at your current asking price. You might also negotiate other terms to counterbalance a low offer – e.g., seller concessions, home warranties, closing dates, post-closing occupancy, or quick closing/occupancy.
Remember that the longer it takes to sell your home, the less likely you are to receive your asking price. The longer you have to drag out the process, the longer you’ll pay the mortgage.
The negotiating part of the process can be tricky, but with an experienced agent by your side, you’ll be set up for success. Pomerleau Realty Group takes pride in seeing deals through to closing!
Close On The Sale
Once you accept an offer, there are still a few steps to complete before you make it to the closing table and hand your house keys over to the new owner.
If the buyer is getting a mortgage, then they will likely need to get an appraisal done on the home. A home appraisal is an important step for both buyer and seller. A buyer cannot borrow more than the appraised value of a home. If the appraisal comes back lower than the offer, there are a few options. The buyer could pay the difference in cash, you could renegotiate the sale price, or both parties may need to walk away from the deal. The appraisal is an important consideration when pricing your home to sell.
Another important step the buyer will need to take is to get the home inspected. If the inspection goes smoothly, closing should be a breeze. However, if the inspection uncovers issues with the home or any red flags, the buyer may want to renegotiate to a lower price, ask you to make the necessary improvements, or walk away from the deal.
Once everything has been completed and you’ve arrived at closing day, you’ll likely sign the documents at the office of a third party, like a title company or attorney’s office. You may have a separate closing from the buyer or close together in the same place at the same time. Congratulations on your successful home sale!
