Selling a home?

Let David Chirico - The Realtor With An Appetite - Sell Your Home!

Five Tips To Sell Your Home:

1. Know your finances inside and out. This is a no brainer. You need to know not only what you can afford to buy, but also, what your house is worth before you even get started. Talk to your real estate agent and consult a mortgage banker or broker for loan pre-approval.

2. Start packing. Start boxing up stuff you don’t need easy access to. Get rid of all the things you won’t need until you’ve moved into your new home. This will help make your home show better and starting the packing process now will make it that much easier to move later. You may need to rent a storage unit temporarily for your stuff.

3. Do whatever quick fixes you need to do to sell your home. Do you have a toilet that constantly runs?  Is your kitchen right out of the 1950s?  If so, get busy fixing those things that could cause your home to sit on the market longer than necessary or affect your home’s value.

4. Start home shopping and learning the market. Start going to open houses and seeing what’s out there. Begin the process of elimination: What are the must-haves and the deal killers?

5. When you’re ready, list it. Depending upon your situation, you might want to list your property toward the higher end of its value range, once you’re actively in the market. This can buy you time while you shop for your next home. And who knows? You might get more money. (It still happens.)

Setting the Sales Price

Before we set the sales price of your house, I'll run a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) that will show the listing price of similar houses in the area as well as the prices at which the houses actually sold. Additionally, the analysis will give us information about houses currently on the market and about houses that were on the market but never sold.

Next, I'll ask you about your goals in selling the house. Everyone who sells a house has different goals that need to be factored in when calculating the selling price.

• Is your goal to get the maximum sales price for your house?
• If so, are you willing to have your house on the market for many months?

• Is your goal to sell your house quickly?
• If so, are you willing to sacrifice some of your potential profits to sell more quickly?

• Would you like to establish a balance between selling your house quickly and selling at the top end of market value?

Market conditions will play a role in setting the sales price of your house. I'll factor in how quickly houses are selling in your area, interest rates, the strength of the school system, and finally whether it is a buyer's or seller's market.

I'll then recommend a price at which to list your house to meet your goals in the local market.