Are you considering selling your home? Or maybe you’re just curious about its value?
This is intended to help you get ready and understand the selling process so you can make the best choices for yourself and your family.
But at William Raveis, it’s not just about what we do that is different… it’s also how well we do it. We use innovative strategies that are proven to sell your home and get you the results that you want.
In this guide, I will outline the skills, strategies, and actions that enable us to achieve these results. Or for a personal conversation about your specific situation, reach out to me for a free professional market analysis.
In my experience, many homeowners think that all REALTORs® do the same thing. If you’ve talked to more than one REALTOR®, then you probably have a similar perception.
Most people have a general idea of what happens in a home sale, but we’ve found that these assumptions can have costly consequences. For example, you may think that you need to remodel your bathroom before you can go to market, but in fact that renovation could result in wasted time and money if your target buyers won’t value it.
Your best bet for a successful home sale is to lean on our experience and expertise, which is why we recommend that you reach out to us first as soon as you think of selling. We’ll then guide you through the rest of these events:
HIRE A REALTOR® – Hire a professional who knows how to list, market, and sell your home. The sooner you connect with us, the more time we’ll have to craft your ideal home selling strategy.
ASSESS HOME VALUE – We use market knowledge and prices of competing homes to set the list price of your home. Learn more about our pricing strategy later in this guide.
PREPARATION – Get the home ready for staging, photography, and showing. We’ll consult with you to ensure you only focus on the projects that will net you the best return on your investment of time and energy.
MARKETING – Start marketing the home using a thorough property marketing plan. You’ll see later in this guide what kind of marketing activities we use to net our clients more on their home sales.
SHOWINGS – Buyers will tour the home, ask questions, and determine if your home is the right fit for them. We’ll analyze their feedback and suggest adjustments to your listing if necessary.
NEGOTIATE OFFERS – We will help you evaluate the offers on your home, then negotiate to get the best based on your criteria. Some sellers prioritize price, but you may find that the closing date is more important to you, for example.
MANAGE CLOSING – We work with the buyer’s agent, lawyers, and title to legally finish the sale. Once the paperwork is complete, you’ll be ready to move!
You may have heard that there is not much housing inventory right now, which means that prices are high across the board. This is great news for you as a home seller! The timing is perfect for you to get a strong return on your investment in your home.
But even in today’s market, there are still homes that sit, waiting for an offer, for months and months. This time spent on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) means that you are still making payments on your mortgage and you are still not getting equity out of your home.
Perhaps even worse is what buyers and buyer agents think about homes that have been on the market for too long. A buyer’s first impression about a property that has been listed for a long time in this market is “Something must be wrong with that home.”
That thought will scare away many buyers, and it will prompt the ones who remain interested to try to lowball you when they submit an offer on your home.
But why are those homes still on the market in the first place? It’s because they are often priced “out of the market.”
HOME PREPARATION
Repairs
Cleanliness
Staging
PROPERTY MARKETING
In the “old days,” real estate agents marketing their sellers’ properties would simply put a sign in the yard, put a listing in the MLS, and pray that it sold. Even today, there are a lot of real estate professionals who think syndicating listings to portals is a job well done.
And that might actually be enough to sell your home in a hot market. But if that’s all an agent does to market your home to potential buyers, then they’re not fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility to you — to get you the most money possible for your home.
You see, you have a distinct advantage in wanting to sell your home right now: there is not much inventory, but there are a ton of buyers. A smart agent will use this classic example of supply and demand to create an auction environment for your home.
We employ a strategic Property Marketing Plan that uses the latest technologies to seed the marketplace, optimize for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and position your home for the best possible impression right out of the gate.
And our efforts don’t stop once your home has been listed. We use our national network of agents to continuously promote your home to people wanting to move to the area. As well as open houses, social media and direct mail marketing.
Selling your home is a huge emotional and financial undertaking. You need a professional listing agent on your side who is a master negotiator with the skills and experience to get the job done right.
We are home sales experts in our local market, and we are confident in our ability to handle your transaction and any surprises that may pop up along the way to the closing table.
So if you are considering selling your home in today’s market, I invite you to reach out to me. I would love the opportunity to learn more about your specific situation and explain to you in more detail what I do differently!
