What to Expect When You're Listing Your Home
When I represent a seller, I have your best interests in mind the entire way. No matter the price point, you will get my full attention: availability, staging advice, professional marketing, tough negotiating skills, and top-notch photography will set your listing apart. I believe it’s not only my job to sell your home for the highest and best price the market will allow, but to do so quickly with as little stress and interruption to your life as possible. If you are interested in selling your home, review the checklist below. This checklist contains all the steps we will follow together to sell your home or condo. After you’re done reviewing, send me an email at beverlysthilaire@michaelsaunders.com so we can set up a time to review your property together.
Know that when you work with me, I will educate you throughout the entire process to ensure you understand every step of the transaction. You’ll be in good hands.
Here is what you can expect throughout the process of selling your home or condo.
Step 1: Hire a realtor.
This one’s easy. Let’s check it off your list together.
Step 2: Before it goes live in the MLS - a mini-checklist:
I will prepare a market analysis to guide us to the best list price. We will review this together and determine a price and when your property should go live on the MLS.
We’ll fill out some paperwork on your property and a contract for the listing itself.
Declutter and staging prior to photography is a must.
I recommend completing a pre-listing inspection to bring to light any issues that would come up in negotiations before we secure a buyer. That way, you can…
Make necessary repairs. We need to fix anything we know about before we list so our negotiation position is not hindered by a house that appears in disrepair.
Perform, or hire someone to perform, a deep cleaning of your home’s interior.
Tidy up the yard and make sure front porches look welcoming, if applicable. If you’re in a condo, your “curb appeal” is limited, but making sure your entry is free of debris and has a nice welcome mat out front would certainly help.
I’ll hire someone to take professional photography of your residence once it is looking its best and we are almost ready to go live.
Step 3: Activity While Home is on the Market
Once we have the professional photography back, your property will be entered into the MLS While your home is on the market, a lot is going on behind the scenes. Here’s what I’ll be doing during this phase:
Facilitating a sign and lockbox installation on your property (if allowed by association rules) so everyone who passes by knows it is available, and realtors have a way to get in (with our approval) to show the property.
Marketing your property to my fellow realtors at company meetings, broker open houses, and by email as soon as it goes live in the MLS.
Printing and disseminating professional property brochures to everyone who views your home.
Holding your home open to the public on select days, as works with your schedule.
Letting interested parties and their representation in to view the property at a time that works for all of us.
Following up with the realtors of folks who have seen the property to gauge interest and garner feedback on price, condition of property, and overall presentation of your listed home.
Periodically reporting back to you on this feedback as well as market changes and MLS statistics regarding your home.
Step 4: We’ve Got an Offer. Now What?
We will go through any offer that comes in on your property together. A few things we pay specific attention to are:
The offer price. What did you want for your home? How does this stand up against that number?
Earnest money. How much is the buyer willing to put in escrow (willing to put at risk) in the effort to purchase your property.
The closing date. Typically, this is 30-60 days in our market. Are you comfortable with the closing date the buyer has proposed?
Financial implications. Is a loan involved? If so, how much will they put down for the loan? Do we have reasonable confidence the loan will come through or have they provided pre-approval?
Other potential costs. Included are things like seller-provided home warranty, which can run several hundred dollars, or credits to the buyer on closing costs, which can run several thousand dollars. I’ll help you identify potential extra costs that you weren’t anticipating and determine if they are reasonable given the offer price and time of closing.
Contingencies. Are there any contingencies to this offer? Let’s go through those and make sure we are comfortable with them prior to accepting any offer.
At this point, you’ll be able to either ACCEPT the offer as-is, REJECT the offer outright, or NEGOTIATE by responding with a counter-offer of your own. Next month, we’ll look at all these options and review the steps from Contract to Closing Table.