What to Know When Planning to Sell Your Home

Selling a home is a process with many steps. From staging to marketing, there are many opportunities for sellers to misstep and compromise the sale of their home. Consider the following tips, steps, and advice to ensure a successful home sale.

For informational purposes only. Always consult with a licensed real estate professional before proceeding with any real estate transaction.

View Your Home Sale as a Business Proposition

When you first decide to sell your home you'll be calling in a real estate agent. Not only will he recommend a selling price but he may also suggest getting rid of a lot of the clutter in your home. This may also include furniture. The reasoning behind this is quite simple. The less clutter and distractions that you have in your home, the more a potential buyer is able to see the potential in your property.

The things that you may find appealing in your home may not be so appealing to others. The beautiful artwork that is hanging on your walls may be overkill or act as a distraction to the buyers that your real estate agent will be bringing through your home. Your agent is able to walk into a place and see the items that could be considered as a drawback. You shouldn't take any recommendations that your agent gives to you personally. Selling your home is business and isn't a personal game.

In fact, anything that is personal should be taken out of view. The pictures that you have of your family that are sitting on your side tables should be put away for now. A potential buyer wants to see the home as a place that his family can live in. A visitor that is looking for a new dwelling should be able to naturally envision himself and his family members living in the new home.

You may be handed a list of recommendations by your agent or you may be told that a professional home stager will be able to make your home more sellable. This does not mean that you have done anything wrong with your decorating. You are supposed to make your home feel like your own. It just means that your place needs to have some work done so that potential buyers can imagine this home as their own.

It's never a good idea to mix business with pleasure and you must remember that selling your home comes down to solid business choices that have been proven to work in the past. Your agent doesn't mean anything personally if he asks you to change things up a bit. He's just trying to help you get a faster sale at the best price possible.

The 7 Steps That Lead to a Successful Home Sale

When you deal with a real estate firm that offers a successful marketing action plan, you can't lose. It's all about promoting your home on the market to bring in the fastest sale and the best price. Here are the 7 steps that need to be completed in order to reach this goal.

Market Analysis

A professional analysis of your property needs to be done in order to assign your home a correct market value according to current conditions.

Staging Your Home

Whether you decide to have your home professionally staged or you decide to fix things up a bit to make your home more presentable, staging is an important part of the process. Your real estate agent will give you some recommendations regarding your property and how it could be better presented.

Home Photographs

It's often suggested that your home be professionally photographed to present it in its best light both inside and outside. If you're handy with a camera, however, you may decide to take the pictures on your own.

Create A Virtual Tour

This is a great marketing tool that can help to sell your home quickly. A virtual tour allows Internet browsers to view your home as if they were standing in it themselves.

Put Together A Feature Sheet

This is a sheet that shows the best features of your home and can be provided to potential buyers.

Hold Open Houses

A lot of people still go to open houses to get a feel for the different homes on the market and their pricing. An open house needs to be advertised to the public and to agents.

Additional Marketing

Your home will be added to our website and will appear on the home listings on various sites throughout the Internet. We aim for maximum exposure in order to facilitate the fastest sale possible.

Additional Home Selling Tips For Sellers

Here in Calgary, home sales have been breaking records in 2013 and the momentum has remained strong into 2014. If you're planning on putting your home up for sale this spring here are some of the top home seller tips for 2014 that will help you get prepared for a quick spring sale.

Start Your Planning Now

Getting your house up and listed on the market often takes a bit longer than usually expected. If you need to do a home inspection, get it done now and start de-cluttering as soon as possible. As well, take a look around and see if there are any obvious repairs that should be done before inviting viewers into your home. It's important to get your home ready early so that when spring does arrive you are totally prepared to put up the sign on your front lawn.

Choose A Real Estate Agent

Start interviewing agents to get one lined up now. Look for agents that are making full use of the Internet for marketing and promotions and agents that are on top of mobile technology. Most people look online for a new home so you’ll want an agent that is up to date on the latest and greatest technological advances in the real estate field.

Hold Off On Any Major Renovations

Now is not the time to start any major renovations in your home. Larger projects can often get delayed due to labour or material complications. You certainly don't want to miss the spring rush simply because you started a big project and weren't able to finish it in time.

Take A Look At The Latest Trends

Take a look through the Internet and find out what the latest trends are for 2014. There may be some small things that you can do to make your homes sell quicker that are trending right now.

Planning for the Closing Date

If you're planning to put your home on the market soon, when should you schedule your closing date? If you make it too soon, you could repel possible buyers and the same situation could occur if you make it too far down the road. There is an average timeframe that should be followed in order to see a quick sale.

While there are other things that may need to be negotiated for the home purchase, the closing date is usually one of the most important factors taken into consideration. In most cases, the closing date will be within 30 to 60 days. This is the usual timeframe that most buyers expect and are looking for.

While you may be able to stretch out the closing date for 90 days, if you try to make it any longer than that, you'll definitely be leaving buyers behind. Most people that have decided on a home want to move into it as quickly as possible. Sometimes they will be in the process of selling their own homes as well and have probably put a 30 to 60 day closing date on them as well.

If you're not planning on moving out of your home for 6 months, you may not get multiple offers on your home. You may have to wait for the exact right buyer to come along that is willing to wait this long before occupying your home. This means that your listing will be sitting around gathering moss (in most cases). If it doesn't sell quickly, and it's getting closer to the closing date, buyers may look at your home suspiciously and wonder why it was lurking on the listings for so long.

Usually, it's best to put your home on the market close to the closing date. Of course, there may be cases when this isn't possible. The best thing you can do is talk it over with your real estate agent to find out how flexible closing dates are in your community and how desperate the real estate market is now for fast closures.

For informational purposes only. Always consult with a licensed real estate professional before proceeding with any real estate transaction.