Are You Ready For What It Takes To Sell A Home?

The typical home selling process usually requires some lengthy steps. For instance, the average home can take anywhere from two to three months to sell depending on location, the buyers market, and just how ready you are to take on the process in the first place. In this blog, we will go over a few of the common hurdles that come up for home sellers and how to overcome them.

The Dreaded Home Inspection

An inspection is simply an assessment of the home and property to document its status at the time of purchase. To save yourself some time in the closing process, it’s never a bad idea to do a “sellers inspection”.

A seller’s inspection is done before listing the property. Doing this will allow you to make changes or repairs ahead of time if you wish to do so, in efforts to avoid the hassle of renegotiation later on with a potential buyer.

It is very common for a buyer to request renegotiation after a home inspection comes back with some red flags, and in some cases, the buyer may even choose to walk away completely. The good news for you is those home inspections, though scary in thought, are not all that bad when you understand what it entails and are prepared for it.

If you know off the top of your head that there are repairs that need to be made around your home, do your best to take care of them. Loose ends will only slow down the entire process when it comes to inspection time and then renegotiation as a result. Hiring a licensed professional to perform a sellers inspection pre-listing will save you a lot of time and frustration.

Pricing Your Home Appropriately

One of the most common issues that slow down or stop a residential sale are homes that are priced poorly or all together inaccurately. There are definitely some steps you will need to take when trying to reasonably value your home for listing.

An important thing to keep in mind when searching for an agent to sell your home is that different agents will have different approaches on how to estimate the value of your home, in turn resulting in different listing numbers. Agents having varying styles of home valuing is all the more reason to do your own research and calculations first, so you know a good pricing suggestion when you see one.

For starters, pull up some existing listings in your own neighborhood, preferable recent listings. Once you’ve done this, find the homes most similar to your own, what are they going for and do the listings appear to be reasonable to you?

Make sure the homes you are comparing are similar in age to your own, as older and newer homes will vary in value. Also, pay attention to square footage comparison, and whether they have a pool or not. There are many things to consider when comparing listed homes in search for comparison value of your own.

All of the homes you compare will differentiate from your own home to some extent or another, however, taking these steps will give you a much better idea of what is selling, what isn’t, and around about where you should fall on the value scale.

Once you’ve done this, you are ready to speak with an agent and now have a rough number in mind of what to list your home at and the knowledge of the housing market around you.

The Importance Of Accurate Disclosure

The first thing you need to understand about disclosure is that the requirements change from state to state. There are things you are legally obligated to disclose and things you are not (but maybe should mention), and other matters which you may simply want to avoid discussing all together to prevent complicating the sale.

Your agent can help advise you on these matters, subject to the requirements of your state of course.  At the end of the day, disclosures can be a pretty tricky juggling act, to say the least.

However, if you travel back up to our first discussion on performing a “Sellers Inspection”, that option will alleviate most of your stressors simply because you know the majority of what you are working with ahead of time and what you are required to, or simply want to repair or change.

Paying a professional to perform a thorough inspection of your home before listing will save you a fair amount of time and headache as a seller, and when it comes to the disclosure process, you will be ready with all of your affairs and repairs in order.

Research, Research, Research!

When it comes to selling your home, what it all comes down to is doing your homework. Have your home inspected before listing to save time and unexpected complications and make sure you understand and abide by all of your legal disclosure obligations.

Once you’ve mastered each of these key components, you will be ready to sell your home with confidence! For more information on how to sell your home and get the biggest bang for your buck, contact Key Realtors today!