5 Easy Steps to Sell Your Home
Step 1: PREPARE
Step 3: LISTING TIME
Step 2: PRE-LISTING
- Home Tour & Research
- Listing Appointmentment
- Hire A Real Estate Agent
Step 2: PRE-LISTING
Step 3: LISTING TIME
Step 2: PRE-LISTING
- Establish A Price
- Stage Your Property
- Marketing Materials Are Designed and Prepared
Step 3: LISTING TIME
Step 3: LISTING TIME
Step 4: OFFER PROCESS
- Launch Property on the Market
- Buyer Prospecting Time
- Be Prepared for Showings and Open Houses
Step 4: OFFER PROCESS
Step 4: OFFER PROCESS
Step 4: OFFER PROCESS
- Sales Agreement
- Contingencies
- Under Contract
Step 5: MOVING OUT
Step 4: OFFER PROCESS
Step 5: MOVING OUT
- Closing Preparations
- Moving & Packing
- Closing Day
Prepare
Home Tour & Research
Before we discuss the home selling process and your expectations, I will tour your property and offer you my insights on what can help you sell your home. Afterward, we will sit down and discuss the approximate value of your property based on current market trends and recent sales in your neighborhood.
Listing Appointment
After our initial meeting, I will prepare a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) that includes sold prices of comparable properties in your area. Once I am finished with all my research and data collection, we will meet again. Based on all the data I collect and your needs, we will establish a competitive listing price for your home. We will also discuss the home selling process, timelines, and expectations from the sale to ensure that we are on the same page and head towards one same goal as a team. Additionally, we will discuss my unique approaches to marketing your property so that you can rest assured that I will do everything possible to get your home for top dollar and fast!
Hire A Real Estate Agent
Some time around our home tour and listing appointment, you will have to decide who you want to represent you during the home selling process. If you choose to hire me, I will walk you through all the listing paperwork and we will get all the necessary documents signed to move ahead with putting your home on the market!
Pre-Listing
Establish A Price
Pricing your home at the right price the first time is crucial to obtaining maximum exposure and selling your home quickly for top dollar. Doing so will also help you save money and time. Pricing a house correctly is mostly based on five factors: the properties location, its condition, its improvements (or upgrades), its age, and the market conditions experienced at the time of the listing.
Therefore, our experience and access to exclusive information from various sources will help us determine a competitive listing price to ensure optimal results.
Stage Your Property
Staging a house is the process of strategically arranging furniture and decor to make a home look its best while selling. This may involve refreshing your belongings, or moving all of your stuff out and renting furniture and decor to bette suit the room's staging arrangements. Our goal is to create a clean, neutral, and coherent look to help buyers imagine what moving into your home could look like.
To help, we will give you personalized tips during our initial home tour, and we will provide you with a home staging checklist (attached below).
Marketing Materials Are Designed and Prepared
While we go further into detail about our marketing strategy, we will have professional photographers take high quality photos of your home after staging your property. At the same time, we will have all of our marketing materials professionally designed and customized to match and include the stunning pictures of your home.
Once all of our marketing materials are designed, we will download and prepare them for print. Before listing day, we will personally deliver some printed materials to you (such as property brochures, "Welcome to our listing" sign, and business cards). That way, you may set-up for showings and help increase buyer turnout rates on offer day.
Aside from printed marketing materials, we will also tackle the digital world by having professional "Coming Soon" and "Just Listed" property social media posts published on all of our social media pages and sponsoring them to reach more prospective buyers.
Listing Time
Launch Property on the Market
The day you have been preparing for is finally here! On launch day, your property will be officially posted online and appear as an active and new listing on MLS. From this day until an offer has been accepted, many real estate agents will be making showing requests. So get ready to leave your home on short notice and for a few hours at a time.
Now, a common question we get from sellers is: "When is the best day of the week to launch our listing?" One thing to remember is that whenever we list a property, we strive to obtain multiple offers on your home to ensure you get the best price for your home. To do this, it is vital to get as many showings compacted in the shortest amount of time as possible.
Weekends are the peak days of the week, where people are often most available to view homes. Therefore, if we list early on in the week and receive an offer immediately from few buyers who went to view your home, you will not be giving a chance to those who are mostly available on weekends to view the property. This is because you will have to decide on the offer you have already received. Therefore, we recommend launching your property closer to the weekend—more specifically, on a Wednesday or Thursday—to ensure maximum buyer exposure and get as many viewings as possible within a few peak days.
Buyer Prospecting Time
Starting on launch day, we will go full-out on exposing your property to prospective buyers. Consistent exposure of your home will be spread across all our social media platforms. We will place targeted Facebook and Instagram ads and customize the audience according to the types of buyers we aim to attract. We will also personally reach out to our real estate professionals' networks and share your listing with them so they know of your property for any interested buyer clients they may know.
Additionally, all scheduled events (including open houses) will be completed until a sales agreement is negotiated and accepted.
Be Prepared for Showings and Open Houses
Once we launch your property, real estate agents will start contacting us to make showing appointments. Depending on your property and market trends, you may experience many showings in a short span or occasional ones. In any case, it is crucial to be prepared for showings and open houses. Here are some tips to help you during this time:
- Be flexible to prospective buyers' schedules to avoid missing out on a strong offer.
- Get everyone in your household on the same page to be all informed when showings are happening to help them maintain their spaces clean and tidy.
- Get your entire household to vacate your property to avoid making buyers feel uncomfortable and leaving them an empty space to visualize themselves living in your home without added pressure.
- Create a mood by setting a tone that accentuates your property's features. Examples include: light a fire if you have a fireplace (even if it's summer), create a romantic atmosphere by placing two clean champagne glasses on a table with a bottle of champagne, turn on some soft music at a low volume like in stores, turn on any decorative water features (such as fountains), drape sensuous materials such as chunky knit blankets over your chairs and sofas.
Offer Process
Sales Agreement
Once a buyer tours your property and decides they would like to purchase it, the buyer's representative will prepare an offer and send it to us.
After an offer is submitted, we will sit down and go through the offer together. Although it may be tempting to go with an offer that has offered the highest sale price, we will also have to consider other sales agreement factors: contingencies, financing condition, closing timeline, buyer letter, and repair requests.
Once we have discussed an offer, you will decide how you want to move forward. You can: accept the offer, decline the offer, or counter-offer (which occurs when you want to negotiate on the sales agreement terms). If you choose to counter-offer, the buyer would have to decide whether they wish to accept, decline, or counter the counter-offer. After negotiations, if one party agrees with the offer, we will finalize all signatures. The buyer will have to bring the deposit to secure the contract. Now, any inspections, appraisals, financing approvals, or anything else will take place.
Contingencies
Contingencies (or conditions) are found in most sales agreement contracts. The most common ones included in a contract include home inspections and appraisals.
A buyer can hire a professional home inspector to review your property's condition closely. It typically takes 1-4 hours. Suppose the inspector finds anything significant that needs to be repaired. In that case, they may counter-bid on the sale contract, which you may accept, decline, or counter-offer.
An appraisal is often requested by the buyer's mortgage lender to ensure that the buyers are not over-paying too much for your property. No matter the result, I will assist you in making the right moves if required to make any moves.
All conditions have deadlines by which the buyer will have to waive the contingencies to make the sales agreement firm and proceed with the transaction.
Under Contract
The "under contract" period begins after the buyer and seller finalize and sign the sales agreement. During this period, a binding agreement exists between a seller and a buyer involving a property. When a property is "under contract," the seller may not enter into another contract with a different buyer, as the buyer is now obligated to purchase your home. A property is still considered "under contract" with contingencies, and the contract firms up once all conditions are waived.
Moving Out
Closing Preparations
At this point, the buyer's lending approvals have been met, and closing documents have been ordered. The closing appointment has been scheduled, and now it is just a matter of preparing for the big day.
As you prepare for closing day, make sure you have completed the following duties:
- Secure your seller documents
- Deep-clean your house
- Turn off all valves & switches after moving out
- Cancel your insurance policies
- Change your address on subscriptions, bills, banks, etc.
- Transfer your utilities to your new home
- Collect all house keys, remotes, gate keys, pool keys, and mailbox keys for the buyer
Moving & Packing
While you wait for closing day to arrive, don't forget to plan and prepare for your move into your next home!
Closing Day
Closing day is here! The buyer will have a final walk-through of your property 24-48 hours before closing. This is to ensure that you have left your home in the same condition as they purchased it (except for minor wear and tear).
Closing typically takes place at your lawyer's office. You will need to bring some documents with you, including:
- Valid government-issued ID
- All house keys, garage door openers, mailbox keys, pool keys, etc.
- Cashier's cheque to pay for closing costs
- Any outstanding documents requested from your lawyer or lender
Both the buyer and the seller will incur closing fees. For the seller, these fees typically include:
- Lawyer's fees
- Real Estate Commissions
- Title Insurance Home Warranty
- Any unpaid survey or assessment fees
- Any outstanding taxes, fines, or claims against your property
- Any mortgage discharge fees