Here is your snapshot of the real estate sales process
Awh…. is it your first time? Has it been a while? We’ll be gentle. Here is a very, very simplified step by step of what goes into the a home sale.
- Interview real estate professionals to find the person you are the most comfortable and confident in to handle your real estate transaction. See if using an EcoBroker would be right for you.
- Prepare your home for sale: deep cleaning, improvements as needed, etc.
- Talk to your real estate professional about what you should or shouldn’t do when preparing your home for sale.
- Once a real estate professional is selected, the process of arriving at a selling price starts.
- The seller will decide on a price based on the comparative market analysis (CMA) that the Realtor provides.
- The Realtor will list the property on the MLS and make the listing “active.”
- A lockbox should go on the door to provide access to the home to real estate professionals showing and previewing properties.
- Interested parties will begin to see the home for sale through their search and ask to schedule a showing of the property.
- The actively listed property will be shown to interested buyers.
- A buyer is interested in the home (maybe even multiple buyers are interested)!
- The buyer will offer a purchase priced based on what they think the property is worth.
- The seller’s Realtor (Listing Agent) will present any and all offers to the seller with guidance as to which contracts represent the seller’s best interest.
- The seller accepts an offer or “counter offers.” If the seller accepts the full offer with no contingencies, skip to #15.
- If there is a counter offer, negotiations ensue.
- An agreement may or may not be met… there may be a counter offer or several counter offers between the buyer and seller.
- If both parties can not agree, there is no contract.
- If both parties agree to the contract and all contingencies, the contract is ratified.
- The ratified contract will go through any contingencies, i.e. a general home inspection, a termite inspection, financing procurement, etc by the dates specified in the contract.
- Once all contingencies are settled and complete, the contract should go to settlement with the Title company.
- The title company will pull title, request a land survey and work in conjunction with the lender (if it is not a cash offer).
- When all of the title documents are in order, you will go to closing.
- At closing, title will be exchanged, and keys will be given to the new owner, pending no other arrangements have been made.
- Congratulations! You’ve sold your house. Now you just need to move!
So, what the heck is your Realtor doing for you while all of this is happening?
In essence, your real estate professional is managing your transaction.
- Your Realtor is handling all communications on your behalf with the other parties’ agent.
- Your Realtor is communicating and facilitating inspections.
- Your Realtor is communicating with the lender to ensure all required documents are procured.
- Your Realtor is ensuring that your best interests are being kept in mind.
- Your Realtor is providing you with feedback and updates about the process and any next steps.
What Do I do for my Sellers:
It seems you searching for a professional to help you market your home to achieve top dollar. This is what I will do for you to get your home listed and ready to be set apart from the rest on the market:
I will do a detailed comparative market analysis. Yes, all agents should do this for you. I will take the time to familiarize myself with your neighborhood, the currently active properties (yep, your direct competition), the properties under contract (the competition which was obviously desirable) and the sold properties (the competition that was so desirable, that it up and sold!). Taking all of these things into consideration, I will prepare an evaluation that I will share with you to help you arrive at a sales price. You are in control of the sales price, but the buyer is the one who will dictates what your homes true value is worth (what they are willing to pay for your home).
When thinking about pricing, we’ll want to look at what your motivation is: why do you want to sell? Do you want to sell the house quickly? Do you want to sell the house for top dollar? Knowing the market and the prices set by current contracts, we can price your house aggressively or as indicated by the top dollar amount you wish to achieve.
We want to bring traffic, and therefore, we want to avoid the common reasons why homes don’t sell:
- They are priced too high- are you being realistic?
- The home is not in prime condition- does it not show well? Have you considered staging? Consider de-cluttering, deep cleaning and staging your home to meet the buyer’s desire- As our friends on designed to sell say… let’s get this house sold. I have staged properties for sale, and also have valuable vendor partners whom I can help arrange for a professional staging to bring you top dollar in a fraction of the time that un-staged homes sell for.
- We can’t change the location of your home, but we can certainly bring the buyers by creating an attractive, well priced property from what already exists.
Creative marketing to hyper-local, local, regional, national and international markets will get your home seen. Any Realtor can just slap your property onto the MLS, let me tell you about my innovative marketing techniques- let me help your property get hip to the viral marketing scene for maximum exposure.
Remember that no home sale is ever the same; Things can change and so do steps in the process… Something else that sellers need to remember is that there is no time line as to how long a sale should take. No one can estimate how long a property will be “on the market.” Having a real estate professional that you trust on your side through the entire process is the a huge benefit for such a large and important transaction.
