Local Selling Tips
Local Selling Tips
Need help staging your home? Need a market analysis update for your neighborhood? Or looking to relocate to a new home to purchase or lease? I can help you with these needs and much more! Call today at 813-470-0047 and let my team get to work to help you with your real estate residential or commercial needs.
Tips for Selling
Your Real Estate Professional should be:
- Aware of the complicated local and state requirements affecting your transaction
- Effective in multi-party, face-to-face negotiations
- Highly-trained, with access to programs for continued learning and additional certifications
- Resourceful in attracting the largest possible pool of potential buyers
- Knowledgeable in the technology resources that facilitate the transaction
- Assisted by a fully-staffed marketing department
- Supported by professional legal counsel
Developing a Marketing Strategy
In order to sell your home quickly and on the best possible terms, it's necessary to prepare your home for the market. This process includes:
- Deciding when to put your home on the market
- Establishing a strategic price based on recent comparable sales, local market conditions and your motivation to sell
- Estimating probable net proceeds
- Advising you on how to make your home more appealing to potential buyers
Marketing Your Property
Your Sales Associate will help you to select a mortgage lender. Once you have made your decision, these are the steps of the process:
- Ordering a "FOR SALE" sign to be placed prominently on your property
- Installing a lock box to make it easy for agents to show your home
- Submitting your home to the regional Multiple Listing Service for immediate exposure to the real estate community
- Arranging Sales Associates in the area to tour the home
- Developing a flyer/brochure highlighting the features and benefits of your home
- Promoting your home at the appropriate Association(s) of Realtors' for maximum exposure to other cooperating agents
- Holding open houses when appropriate
- Contacting your neighbors to promote the property
- Advertising your property on our regular office schedule
- Featuring your property on our web site
- Asking clients and colleagues if they know of possible buyers
Managing the Transaction
You'll appreciate having a strong advocate on your side during the transaction!
Negotiating the Offer
Your Sales Associate will immediately present and explain all offers to you. You will be able to accept, reject, or counter any offer presented. During the negotiation process, your Associate will leverage their experience and skills to advocate your interests:
- Reviewing the contract and obligations before you sign
- Explaining how contingencies and release clauses work
- Protecting you from signing a "blank check" for unknown problems or repairs
legal disclosure requirements - Orchestrate the offer process for "back-up" offers, if necessary
- Throughout the negotiation, your Associate will provide you with a professional, objective point of view, but the final decision of accepting an offer is yours.
After the Offer is Accepted
Once an offer is accepted, your Associate will manage all the details to make the process as stress-free and efficient as possible:
- Staying in contact with the buyer's agent to ensure a smooth escrow
- Following up on the progress of the buyer's loan
- Monitoring all contingency removal deadlines
- Assisting you if a conflict with the buyer arises
Finalizing and Closing the Transaction
Finalizing the process includes reviewing all closing documents and ensuring both parties have copies. When the transaction has closed, your Sales Associate will deliver the closing check to you and the keys to the new owner.
Pricing Your Home to Sell
Pricing your home correctly is crucial to selling your home in a timely manner at the highest price possible. CENTURY 21 Real Estate agents know that current market conditions determine the value. Pricing too high or too low can cost you time and money.
- Factors affecting the price include, location, features, condition of your home, age of your home and current market conditions
- What you paid for your home has nothing to do with its present value
- The value some agents put on your property is not always accurate
- Homes you think are the same as yours may in fact be very different
- Ultimately, the buyer determines the value of your home based on comparisons they make to other houses currently on the market
- CENTURY 21 Associates has access to the latest technology to get you the most current market data available
- Our experienced agents can help you price your home correctly so that it sells for the highest price possible in the shortest amount of time
The Importance of Intelligent Pricing
Determining the best asking price for a home can be one of the most challenging aspects of selling a home. In fact CENTURY 21 Real Estate agents know that it is also one of the most important. If your home is listed at a price that is above market value, you will miss out on prospective buyers who would otherwise be prime candidates to purchase your home.
If you list at a price that is below market value, you will ultimately sell for a price that is not the optimum value for your home. The percentage increases as the price falls even further below market value.
Therefore, by pricing your property at market value, you expose it to a much greater percentage of prospective buyers. Thus increasing your chances for a sale while ensuring a final sale price that properly reflects the market value of your home.
Another critical factor to keep in mind when pricing your home is timing.
A property attracts the most attention, excitement and interest from the real estate community and potential buyers when it is first listed on the market. Improper pricing at the initial listing misses out on this peak interest period and may result in your property languishing on the market. Eventually leading to a below market value sale price, or, even worse, no sale at all.
Therefore, your home has the highest chances for a fruitful sale when it is new on the market and the price is reasonably established. We can give you up-to-date information on what is happening in the marketplace and the price, financing, terms, and condition of competing properties.
These are key factors in getting your property sold at the best price, quickly and with minimum hassle.
Preparing your home for sale is critical! Century 21 Real Estate agents will take the time to analyze your home and counsel you on whether or not is is ready to show.
Doing whatever you can to put your house's best face forward is very important if you want to get close to your asking price or sell as quickly as possible. Short of spending a lot of money, there are several steps people can take to make their home show better:
- Sweep the sidewalk, mow the lawn, prune the bushes, weed the garden and clean debris from the yard.
- Clean the windows (both inside and out) and make sure the paint is not chipped or flaking. And speaking of paint, if your home was built before 1978, new federal law gives a buyer the right to request a lead inspection. If you think you might have some problems, do the inspection yourself beforehand and make any fixes you can.
- Be sure the doorbell works.
- Clean and spruce up all rooms, furnishings, floors, walls and ceilings. It's especially important that the bathroom and kitchen are spotless.
- Organize closets.
- Make sure the basic appliances and fixtures work. Get rid of leaky faucets and frayed cords.
- Make sure the house smells good: from an apple pie, cookies baking or spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove. Hide the kitty litter.
- Put vases of fresh flowers throughout the house.
- Having pleasant background music playing will also help set your stage.
The first impression a buyer has is the appearance of your home.
Give yourself every advantage!
