Once you have your home ready for the market, it is time to get your home listed. You will meet with your Realtor and they will advise you on the best price to list your home. I personally will provide you with three price options based on how fast you would like to sell. Keep in mind; it’s always your say on what you sell your home for. You will sign a contract between you and the brokerage, and it will spell out all the terms and conditions
Next you will need to fill out a sellers property disclosure form stating the things you know work, don’t work and anything that may be wrong with the property. It is important not to lie; it could lead to trouble down the road.
Be sure before signing with an agent that you know what their marketing plan is and how they are going to get your home sold. A good agent is going to measure the rooms, take lots of quality photos, and want to know everything about you home. If your agent gets your signatures and leaves, it’s not a good sign that your home is going to get advertised well. Listings with great pictures and/or staged to sell will sell it quicker and get a lot more showings.
Now your home is on the market. While your home is on the market it needs to be kept clean and ready to show at any time. I know how inconvenient and hard this can be as I have had my home listed while having 3 kids under 9 plus a 2 year old, but it must be done. You never know, your buyer could have been the one that came through when you let your guard down, and they decided not to because they were unable to see through the mess and see how great your home is. Along with keeping it clean, you need to make your home available on short notice as much as possible. If you tell someone that they can’t look when they want to, you may have just sent your buyer away forever to buy another house. Currently in the Treasure Valley market, homes that are priced well and in good showing condition are not lasting very long before they are under contract..
Here is something to keep in mind. You are selling your home, which means you’re going to need a new place yourself. Don’t wait until your home is sold to start looking. Start looking early and be informed on the market you’re looking to buy in. It is important to have a good exit strategy (Where will you go between houses? Where will you put your belongings?). You can look and wait to buy when you get an offer on your current house, but what happens if you find the perfect home for you before your home sells? You make an offer, but part of your offer is that it is contingent on the sale of your current home. This way if your home doesn’t sell then you don’t get stuck with two homes and two mortgages.
All right you have an offer, now what? Your agent receives the offer for your home and will review it and advise you on what is being offered. One thing to keep in mind is if you don’t negotiate with the buyer they are not going to negotiate with you. You are never obligated to accept an offer you don’t like. If you get down to where you and your buyer are just $500 to $1000 away from an agreement but you’re in a stalemate, consider this. If you choose not to concede the difference and leave your home on the market, it could be another month or two before the next offer. Sure your second offer was $1000 better than the last one, which is just what you wanted, but in the mean time you paid $1200 to $2400 more in mortgage payments. So did you really come out ahead?
You have accepted an offer, what’s next? Now that you have accepted an offer on your house, your agent will send the necessary documents to the title company and open escrow. In most case, now the buyer is going to pay to have a home inspector come a check your home to make sure it is in good repair. Should there be a major problem, either the buyer says ok I am still buying the house, or you step back into negotiations to see who is going to pay for the repairs or the buyer can walk away if you refuse to repair the required items. Also, the buyer’s mortgage company is going to have an appraisal done to make sure the house is worth what they offered. Should the appraisal come in low, you are going back to negotiations. You have a few options but are likely going to have to sell your home for less because it’s not worth what the original offer was. There are many problems you can run into at this stage of the sell, but that is why you have a Realtor to help you get through this process. I have not covered all that can happen but these are some of the major players.
It’s time to close the sell. Everything went well and now you are ready to finalize the deal. At this time you’re going to sign everything that is needed to sell your home. You should always check your closing statement to make sure all the numbers are right and your Realtor will too. In Idaho the deal is not complete until both buyers and sellers have signed and everything has been funded. This can take a day or two, then at that time if you are owed any money you will receive a check from the title company. Congrats! You have just sold your home.
Get your home listed with me today at http://www.findboisehomes4sale.com/listings.html
*I have done the best I can to explain the home selling process, but if I have missed anything I am sorry. This is just the basics idea of the process.
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