Everything You Need to Know About...
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| Clearly Know Why You Want to Sell | |
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Understand Disclosure Laws and What Inspections You Will Need |
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Be Open to Your Realtors's Suggestions For Staging Your Home |
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Do you want to “get the profit out” of an appreciated home? Are you moving to a new area or wanting a larger home? Whatever your reasons, there are sure to be a lot of emotions involved with the selling of such a personal investment.
The more you can separate the emotions from the actual goals you need to achieve, the
better a position you can be in to evaluate your options and negotiate the best results.
Make sure that you’ve examined all of the alternatives and that selling is really the best decision in your situation.
Keep in mind that no matter how much you sell this house for, you’re still going to have to live somewhere.
Make sure that what you can afford to buy after the sale makes the process of selling worth it.
Darrin Jaszkowiak can help you not only by making you aware of all of the costs involved in selling and the approximate amount of profit you can realistically expect, but also by helping you research the area or home you’re interested in moving to and how much you’ll have to spend on the other end.
As objectively as possible, take a walk through and around your house, trying to look at it as a potential buyer would.
Make a list of all the things you would want to change or repair if you were going to remain living here.
You may not wind up doing all of these things, but start taking care of the small and inexpensive repairs and make sure your home is as clean and attractive as possible even before contacting a real estate broker to list your property.
Their first impressions of the general appearance of your home will color an agent’s conclusions about how easy or difficult your home will be to sell and about the right price for your home.
If you make your home more inviting, the agent will be more eager to bring buyers through to show it off.
By making the broker’s selling job easier, you increase your chances of getting the price you want—or at least a price close to it.
As a seller, the asking price you determine for your property must take into account the following criteria:
As you can see, very few of those things are within your control. However, you’ll be in a much better position to make the most of your sale if you at least have a full understanding of all the elements involved.
All of the economic realities that affect your home’s market value are reflected in the prices of recently sold homes.
Your real estate agent should provide you with a complete comparative market analysis showing the listing and sales prices and the features of other homes similar to yours in the area that have sold recently as well as the features and listing prices of homes currently for sale.
The report should also reflect the length of time each of these homes have been on the market.
No matter how much you think you may have already learned from talking to neighbors and looking at ads in the local papers, seeing the hard, cold facts is still usually surprising to most sellers. You’re likely to find that the people you talked to tended to “round off” or exaggerate the prices they bought or sold for.
Many homeowners believe that to get the most money out of their home sale they should sell it themselves, thereby saving the commission they would otherwise pay to a broker. Indeed, approximately one-fourth of home sellers each year do not use a real estate broker and about 72 percent of those are happy with the results they achieved.
However, close to half of that 72 percent also stated that the next time around they would hire a real estate professional to help them sell. Why?
For many, the time, paperwork, research and hassles involved in getting their home sold on their own were not worth the amount of money they saved in commissions to a broker.
For others, by the time they figured in the amount of fees paid to outside consultants, lawyers, inspectors, appraisers, and title, escrow and loan officers as well as marketing, advertising and other services and vendors, they may as well have paid the broker’s fee, which may have included some of these charges up front.
Some will also have discovered that the cost of recovering from a misstep or bad decision based on inexperience or lack of guidance more than outweighed the amount they saved in real estate agent fees.
If you are a first-time seller, these questions are even more important since you haven’t been through the process before.
After answering all these questions, if you still feel that maybe you’d like to try to sell on your own, you may want to give yourself a time limit—just as you would give an agent in a listing agreement.
Then, after trying it on your own, if your home hasn’t sold, reevaluate your situation and consider whether you need to pursue other options.
Whatever the case, you always have the option to consult with several qualified agents and determine whether their services are worth the price you would pay.
In the vast majority of cases, they are.
Choosing the Right Real Estate Agent
Once you’ve decided to consult with an agent, the decision of which one to choose is probably the biggest and most important decision you’ll make in the entire process.
The best first step is to talk with close friends and relatives who have recently sold a home. Ask if they had a good experience, whether they would recommend the agent and if they had any reservations or things they wished the agent had done differently.
Also talk to professionals you may know in related industries, including lenders, title officers, contractors or builders, accountants or lawyers. Ask them what it is they recommend about the agents they refer and whether they themselves have ever used the agent’s services.
Finally, look around your neighborhood to see what agents seem to be listing and selling the most houses. Take a look at the ads, direct mail, brochures, signs and other materials that the agents use to promote the houses they sell.
Keep in mind that if you don’t like the way they market themselves and other people’s homes, you probably won’t like the way they market yours either.
Once you have a list of several names, call each of them and explain that you’re thinking about selling your home. Ask them if they have any information that they could send you, since you’d like to be able to make a decision about which agents to interview before you list.
The most professional agents will have personal brochures that introduce you to them and let you know a little bit about who they are and how they work.
Again the quality of these materials will say a lot about the quality and the professionalism of the service they provide.
Also, pay attention to how they respond to your request.
If they aren’t organized and professional enough to respond promptly to your first request to find out more about them, they’ll probably handle potential buyers for your home the same way.
If you like the way they respond to you and are impressed with the information they supply, invite them to make a listing presentation.
It’s always a good practice to meet with more than one potential agent before making a final decision—usually three to five for sellers.
Just make sure that you don’t meet with more than one from the same company. This could cause internal strife which would be counterproductive in marketing your home.
Every agent you meet with will have a different style and a different way of presenting his or her services. During your meeting, think about how comfortable you feel with this person and how well they communicate with you.
This is your chance to evaluate this person at his or her “best” in a sales situation. If you don’t like what you see, think about how potential buyers for your home will respond.
What you should be looking for, first and foremost, is an honest and knowledgeable individual, working full-time and representing a solid and reputable real estate agency, who will treat your best interests as paramount.
Length of time in the business, track record of success, previous experience, expertise in and knowledge of the local real estate market—all of these are factors to consider.
While the right agent to market your home may not be number one in terms of every aspect, you want to make sure that the person you hire is a well-rounded individual who you can trust and respect as a professional.
Ask the agent what he or she will do to expedite the sale of your home.
A good response is one that is a direct and comprehensive plan of action reflecting your goals and your unique situation. Despite having the same basic marketing tools at their disposal, every real estate professional has a different marketing strategy.
Look for someone who doesn’t rely on the same marketing tool every time.
What worked for yesterday’s seller may not get the results you want. The key is to find an agent who will use all the tools available to your best advantage.
Make sure your agent not only demonstrates an in-depth understanding of the entire process, but is able to explain it to you clearly and let you know what things, if any, are particularly critical given your individual transaction.
He or she should have enough experience and expertise to be able to handle whatever comes along during your sale, even if it’s something they’ve never seen.
Ask your agent exactly what you can expect from them during the sale in terms of service and communication.
A true professional will provide you with a checklist of exactly what they’ll do for you as well as a systematic method of providing you with frequent feedback on the status of your sale.
Only with the proper up-to-date information can you make the decisions about your sale which will help you realize the most profit.
Chances are, your real estate agent will make specific suggestions regarding cosmetic and/or major changes in your home’s appearance to make it more attractive to buyers—perhaps even specific buyers he or she has in mind.
This is called staging the home, and any good Realtor® will go over this information with you.
Remember not to take things personally—you may love bric-a-brac on every surface and may feel emotionally attached to the many antiques filling each room, but your agent may ask you to pack some of them away so that potential buyers can picture their own furnishings in the rooms rather than feeling they’re intruding on your personal space.
A competent and professional agent will make these type of recommendations based on the experience he or she has gained through other transactions as well as an earnest desire to help you get the results you need.
Here’s a complete checklist of things you
can do to improve your home’s saleability:
Generally the best investments when preparing your home for sale are those upgrades or modifications that bring you highly visual improvements throughout a large area for a minimum amount of money rather than those that concentrate a substantial investment into a small area.
For example, replacing worn carpet throughout the house is in most cases more valuable to a buyer than a customized closet in the master bedroom.
Remember quality counts, up to a point.
If the stove in your kitchen is broken or extremely worn, replace it with a middle-of-the-line model from a well-known, quality appliance manufacturer rather than the best of the best.
At the same time, making shoddy repairs or using cheap replacements to “get by” may save your initial investment, but won’t get you anywhere in the perceived value of your home.
Potential buyers will see through them and figure they’ll still have to redo it themselves anyway.
Ask your real estate agent for a list of suppliers and contractors who may be able to help you with major repairs or services. Most Realtors® have formed relationships with various vendors who may be able to offer you preferred pricing or exceptional service.
If your home has the potential for major improvements or renovations, find out ahead of time what the feasibility and approximate costs some of the more obvious ones would entail as well as what improvements may be restricted by your city or homeowner’s association.
This helps buyers realize the long-term value and potential of your home.
Once again, your real estate agent may be able to put you in contact with contractors who could give you estimates or have access to reliable information about the costs of renovations or additions other homeowners in the area have made.
In addition to having your home appraised for market value, you will also be required to have your home inspected at least twice: once for structural problems and again for termites.
During the past decade, legal rulings have made it clear that sellers and their brokers must not only make purchasers aware of known problems and defects with the property, but they must also…
“…conduct a reasonably competent and diligent inspection of the residential property listed for sale and to disclose…all facts materially affecting the value or desirability of the property that such an investigation would reveal.”
So not only is it important to be completely up front about problems you’re aware of, but even what you don’t know can hurt you.
Darrin Jaszkowiak can help you find the right qualified inspectors to investigate all the structures and systems of your home.
When your home is listed in the Multiple Listing Service, many agents may be showing it to various buyers and actually helping to get it sold.
With the many roles that agents play—seller’s agents, buyer’s agents, dual agents, transaction brokers, etc.—it’s sometimes hard to keep straight exactly who is working for whom.
Make sure you know who is represented by any agent presenting an offer.
Your seller’s agent is bound by fiduciary responsibility to you. Never tip your hand or reveal your bottom line to anyone who is not.
Determine in advance what your real “bottom line” is—the minimum offer that you would accept. Keep in mind that it’s one thing to think about a minimum offer, and it’s another thing to be faced with losing a sale if you won’t accept a little bit less.
Some flexibility may be required.
Your real estate agent can help you understand all of the implications of price versus yields and terms. In some cases, you may decide to save a deal by giving the buyer his price while working out terms that are even more favorable for you.
Take a proactive approach to looking at any offer that comes your way.
Review each offer in the following order:
In some cases you may want to have your real estate attorney look over the offer. That’s fine if you want to be safe and have him or her explain complex clauses and protect your position.
Just be sure that your attorney doesn’t hedge your bets so closely that you lose a potentially good sale or insist that the deal so heavily favor you that no buyer would be interested.
It’s just like being back in school: There’s no such thing as a stupid question, particularly when your home and your most important investment are at stake.
If you feel your questions are being scoffed at or not answered clearly or appropriately, ask someone else and keep asking until you understand.
Don’t jump to conclusions even if you hear that an offer is substantially lower than your asking price. The terms may make up for it, or vice versa. And in any case, you can always make a counteroffer.
Even if you decide you can’t accept a particular offer, it’s almost always best to present a counteroffer.
Contingency clauses are often handwritten into the offer document and, as a result, can be easy to overlook.
Be sure you understand exactly what the contingency means to you before you accept or reject it.
Some Typical Contingencies Are:
Assuming they have already been prequalified, this can still mean an excellent offer.
Your goal is to let as few of the buyer’s contingency clauses as possible into the agreement and to limit the ones you do allow by time and performance.
You need to decide if any contingencies are reasonable, whether they negate the value of the offer, and if you can live with them.
If not, you should proceed with a counteroffer.
You have three choices when it comes to any offer presented to you:
You cannot accept it and then make changes!
Realize that any time you reject a buyer’s offer, they have the right to walk away from the deal completely. Therefore, if an offer is very close to what you want, you may be making a mistake to counteroffer and insist on having your cake and eating it too.
You risk losing what may be a sure deal.
The most common areas in which you may wish to counteroffer are price, terms, occupancy and contingencies.
Remember that any time you make a counteroffer—even in just one area—you reject the buyer’s offer and they may decide to counteroffer by making changes in some other area as well.
Beware of “splitting the difference.”
For example, say you’re asking $200,000 and they offer you $180,000. You figured you’d probably only get $190,000 anyway so you split the difference and counteroffer $190,000. Rather than taking your offer, the buyer decides to play the same game and counters with $185,000.
Now you’re stuck. If you split again, you’re stuck making an offer that’s lower than your minimum. But if you reject it flat out, you may lose the deal!
Consider How Flexible You Can Be
With Terms and Occupancy
If buyers are asking you to carry part of the financing, remember:
Everything is negotiable.
You may agree to their proposed terms, but change the length of the loan or the interest rate. You may be able to strike a deal that benefits them by giving them lower payments or a lower down, while making you better profits in the long run.
Also, remember that timing isn’t always everything.
If the buyer’s moving plans conflict with yours, consider some alternatives:
Consider how much the inconvenience is worth to sell your home.
Let’s say you’ve received an offer, made a counteroffer and haven’t heard back from the buyers. Is the deal dead?
Maybe not. You may want to consider making another counteroffer.
To avoid looking like you’ll keep coming down if they just wait you out, go out of your way to make it very clear—through the agent, if possible—that you’ll only do this once. If they don’t take it, you won’t counter again.
Have your real estate agent, and perhaps your real estate attorney, go over all the paperwork before you sign it, making sure that you understand and agree with every part