Although you may have had experience buying a home, that does not mean you have any selling experience. There are several decisions that you will need to make that may be hard or you have no idea how to go about it.
Here are some tips to guide you as a first-time home seller:
Prepare emotionally to sell the home
Homes mean a lot to people and carry fond memories. Emotions may hinder a successful home selling process. Despite the personal attachment you may have with your home, it is critical to remind yourself why you have decided to sell it and work on creating new memories.
Fix a competitive price
Though you want to get a good return from the sale of your house, you may ruin the sale process by having a poor listing price, especially by overpricing. You can arrive at a fair price by engaging a professional realtor from the onset. A real estate agent with good experience can fix an accurate price after weighing all of the relevant factors.
The considerations include the location, size of your property, and unique features as well as shortfalls of your home. You may also use online valuation tools to fix the price, but they cannot be as accurate as reputable realtors who can identify extraordinary variances and features. As you calculate the selling price, you also need to consider all the costs you will incur such as realtor’s commission, taxes, and others to know how much you will walk away with.
Identify the best time to sell
There are perfect times to sell and experienced real estate agents know that fact. The best time depends on such factors as the weather, local community, the month, and the state of the real estate market. It would be a perfect time to sell, for instance, when there are few houses on sale in your area. Another great time to sell is when interest rates are low since more potential buyers can access mortgage loans. You should therefore time your home sale perfectly and use the other time to prepare it and compute the listing price.
Sometimes you may not have the chance to wait for the perfect time to sell due to issues like divorce, litigation, and others. On such occasions, you should aim to get the best offer possible. If you live within the Greater Toronto Area, you can visit https://homeflippers.ca/ to sell your house quickly and at a fair price.
Prepare your house for sale
You need to stage your home for sale and you may need a professional to advise you on that. The trick is to balance between cluttering the house and having it almost empty and appearing not have been lived in. Surprisingly, most houses look better with nearly half of the furniture withdrawn.
You also need to do the necessary repairs but not to wait for the home inspection. Fix those leaky faucets, running toilets, and other issues that a potential buyer could point out, hence reducing the value of your home. However, do not do unnecessary repairs that may eat into your final sales proceeds.
Settle on a potential buyer and close the sale
You may have engaged a real estate agent to do the heavy lifting throughout the process of selling your home or you may list it as “for sale by owner” (FSBO). In the latter case, you choose to sell it yourself, so you handle all the processes like pricing it well, preparing it for sale, showing it to buyers, negotiating with potential buyers, and closing the deal. The issue of buyer financing may arise, for example sourcing for mortgage and other things. Where realtors are involved, they handle all the processes and you could only come in during the property transfer stage or where your word is needed.
Conclusion
The process of selling a house is a long and involved one and requires some expertise, thus the need to be well-prepared when embarking on it. Working with professionals will save you a lot of stress, but you will part with some of your sale proceeds. Pricing and timing of the sale are critical, so consider them wisely and with the help of experts in the field.
