Home selling process, part one

In the last two blog posts, we discussed purchasing a home and now we turn our attention to the home sale process. We are in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and while it’s a time filled with uncertainty, we are preparing for the day when the current “pause” on activity is safely lifted and people can move forward with their plans to sell their homes.

As Realtors, one of our jobs is it help home owners navigate the process of selling their property. Sometimes we are approached by prospective clients thinking about selling their home in two years, sometimes they reach out two weeks before they plan to list. Regardless of the time frame, the process is roughly the same.

Preparing/staging

Many times, people will ask for advice on what projects they should complete prior to putting the house on the market. Our answer depends on their time line and resources. Homes that are nicely updated will appeal to more buyers than those that are in need of renovations; however every home will sell when the price accurately reflects its assets and limitations. We work closely with our clients, making recommendations that will increase the sale price of their home and are within their ability to complete.

The second part of this process is “staging”; the final steps to getting the house picture ready. The single biggest recommendations we give is to declutter and “pre-pack”. Now is the time to go through every closet and storage area and deliberately evaluate which items you will use in your new home and which you won’t. We help our clients though this process, providing lists of organizations that accept donations, estate salespeople, junk removal services - whatever they need.

Once the house is decluttered and organized, it’s time to ensure the selling points of the home are highlighted; for example rearranging furniture to draw attention to a picture window overlooking a lovely backyard or taking a leaf out of the table to increase the space in the dining room. We work with the items you already have in the house and if the home is vacant, we can “virtually stage” the rooms, adding appropriate furniture into the pictures of empty rooms.

Bottom line, we work with our clients to ensure that the will house look great online and in person.

Pricing

We like to say that pricing is 80% science and 20% art. The science is the market data; information on recent sales of comparable homes as well as details on the current inventory of active competition. The art is the thorough evaluation of a home’s assets and limitations. Every home as limitations (even million dollar ones) and it’s crucial to have an understanding of how buyers will evaluate your home in relation to their other options. We provide our prospective clients with a detailed pricing report that includes hyperlinks to the comps so that we are all looking at the same information. Based on the home’s assets and limitations, the market data, and our knowledge of today’s buyers, we arrive at a recommendation that we believe will result in a successful sale. It’s typically a range and it’s always a snapshot in time; if significant time elapses between the initial report and listing the house, we will complete a new analysis to ensure the data is still accurate. We view pricing as a collaborative effort and it is ultimately the home owner who decides the list price, but we take our job of providing accurate information seriously.

Marketing

We discussed McSharry and Associate’s detailed marketing plan in a past blog (click here) so we won’t repeat it now but please take a moment to read up on it. We are proud of the marketing services we provide our clients.

Targeted, high quality marketing that’s consistent across platforms is extremely important. Buyers do their initial research online and a home listing that features poor quality photos and lacks detailed information will be passed over for one where the photos pop and the description pulls the reader in. While no Realtor can control who is looking at homes at any given time, it’s crucial you work with one who provides the best quality marketing as that’s the thing we can control and can make the difference in getting your home sold quickly and for top dollar.

In our next blog post, we will examine the steps that occur from the time your house hits the market to the moment you are sitting at the closing table. Stay tuned and be healthy!