For Sellers

Home selling has become more complex than it used to be. New seller disclosure statements, longer and more mysterious form agreements, and a range of environmental concerns have all emerged in the past decade. More importantly, the home selling process has changed. Buyer brokerage, the process in which realtors represent home buyers, is now common nationwide and good buyer-brokers want the best for their clients.

Before placing a home on the market or setting out to find the perfect new home, you should identify a realtor in your community who can assist with the sale.In essence, the realtors at Team Andersen are the community experts. They track real estate trends, share neighborhood concerns and participate in local matters. They’re good neighbors who are in the business of helping others buy and sell homes.

Every reasonable owner wants the best possible price and terms for his or her home. Several factors, including market conditions and interest rates and physical condition, will determine how much you can get for your home. The idea is to get the maximum price and the best terms during the window of time when your home is being marketed.

Once you’ve made the commitment to sell your home, talked to a Team Anderson agent and established a list price, it’s time to market your property so it sells as quickly as possible. 

 

Ideally, the potential buyer or buyers have offered you full price or more, along with the perfect terms for the sale. However, the reality is that not every offer will be immediately acceptable. You’ll need to carefully evaluate each offer and begin a negotiation with the buyers and their agent.

All of us at Team Andersen want act as your partner and educate you on the terms of the offer and help you understand the offer in the context of the housing market in your area. You will need to know whether you’re in a balanced market with equal numbers of buyers and sellers or one in which buyers or sellers have the upper hand. You’ll also need to estimate whether home prices are rising or falling in your community.

Before you begin to analyze any purchase offer, the most important step is to determine whether the buyer can fulfill the terms of the contract with financing. Your realtor can check on the pre-approval letter that should be included with any offer by consulting with the buyer’s agent and the buyer’s lender.

When you have a signed contract with the buyer for your home, you may feel as if you can breathe a sigh of relief. While it’s certainly true that you can lighten up on the perfectionism required to show your home at any moment, as a seller you still need to cooperate with your buyer, the buyer’s agent and the commitments made in the contract.

In other words, before you can completely relax you need to get to the end of escrow. 

While the burden is on the buyer to finalize financing for the home purchase and to obtain homeowners insurance, some contract contingencies will impact you, too, especially if you’re living in the home. Most transactions include a home inspection, so you’ll need to make your home available to the inspector and then negotiate with the buyers about anything the inspection turns up according to the terms of your contract.

Besides the home inspection, some contracts and some lenders call for a termite inspection and a radon gas inspection. In each case, you or your listing agent or the buyer’s agent will need to make the home available for inspection.

Another important step prior to closing is the appraisal. If the appraisal comes in higher than the sales price, then the buyers can relax and be happy that they have purchased a home for less than its market value. Once the contract has been signed, you as the seller cannot renegotiate the price higher. However, if the appraisal comes in lower than the sales price, then the buyer’s lender will limit the loan amount to that lower value. The buyer may have to come up with additional cash to cover the financing gap or may ask you to renegotiate the contract. Your realtor can advise you about the best way to handle this situation, but in any case you and the buyer are also bound by the contract terms.

Before you close escrow, you and your listing agent should go over the contract and make sure you’re fulfilling all the promises you made in terms of what items will be conveyed to the buyer and any repairs or improvements you promised to make.

Even the smallest home contains a lot of furniture, clothes, kitchen equipment, pictures and other items. For a short move, it may be worthwhile to transport small goods by yourself, but larger items will likely require a professional mover.

The time to plan your move begins once you’ve decided to sell your home. Some of the activities required to sell the home can actually help with the moving process. For example, by cleaning out closets, the basement and the attic there will be less to do once the home is under contract.

For tips and tools to assist you in the moving process, visit this helpful link from REALTOR®