Real estate advice you can trust.
For Home Sellers
Sal's Top 10 Tips for Home Sellers
If you are selling your home, and want answers about how to get the best price, read Sal’s Top 10 Tips for home sellers. In the book for home sellers he is now writing, Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal's Top 10 Tips, Sal DeStefano devotes a chapter to each of the tips below, and gives you home-selling tips and advice you can trust. To learn more about the tips in Sal's home-selling book, click on any of the Tips that interest you.
Tip #1: Don’t list your home until you know why you're selling.
Tip #2: Don’t set your price until you know the market.
Tip #3: Pick a listing agent as you would a business partner.
Tip #4: All the world is a stage, including your home.
Tip #5: One man’s dinghy is another man’s yacht.
Tip #6: Help your agent help you.
Tip #7: Every home sells, eventually.
Tip #8: When negotiating an offer, never say never.
Tip #9: An offer without a contract is smoke in the wind.
Tip #10: Before closing, tie up loose ends.
Know your motives before you list your home with a broker or try selling your home on your own. I have seen many people sell their homes for the wrong reasons, then regret their decision afterward. If you need a larger home, but love your block or neighborhood, consider building up or out before selling and moving. The decision to sell or expand is not always easy. Enlarging your current home does not make sense for all people in all circumstances. If your reason for selling is to move to what you believe is a more desirable neighborhood, be careful what you wish for. The grass is not always greener. Before you put your home on the market, become familiar with the neighborhood where you hope to move. Tip #1 in Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal's top 10 Tips shows you how to learn what it’s really like living in that pristine community your heart is set on. Some people are forced to sell. A job promotion or company relocation may require that you move to another city, state, or country. You may lose your job, or your spouse may lose theirs, and keeping your home is no longer affordable. A death, illness, and infirmity may also force a homeowner, or a homeowner’s estate, to sell a home. If you are under pressure to sell quickly, proper pricing is one tool. But if you market your home strategically, you may not have to accept a lower price than you want. Even before you hire a real estate agent, do market research on your own to determine housing market trends in your area. The market is the market is the market. No seller in a declining market likes to hear this, but the market does not lie. It is what it is. You can take specific measures to maximize your price in a falling market, and I show you how in Tip #4, but no amount of paint and carpeting can change the basic dynamics of a market. In a falling market, you must adjust your expectations, or risk chasing the market down. Tip #2 in Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal's Top 10 Tips shares strategies that have helped me maximize my selling price regardless of the market. Too often I’ve heard buyers and sellers complain real estate agents earn “easy money.” Sure, a correctly priced home in move-in condition in a prime location during a hot market by a motivated seller will lure a contract with little effort on anyone’s part, but that’s not the norm. Such a perfect storm of market conditions rarely exists. Almost always, one or more of these elements is absent, and the home will not sell as soon as it hits the market. Maybe the owner’s price is too high, or the house has a major defect or many minor flaws, or the community is in decline, or a slow economy is keeping inventories high. Successful real estate agents work hard—very hard—to earn a living, and an agent with less than perfect ethics will not last long. You can find lazy and deceptive real estate agents if you search hard enough, but you can also find incompetent and crooked lawyers, mortgage brokers, and title agents. The trick is knowing how to find the right real estate professional. Choosing a real estate agent is not always easy. If you had a good experience with your agent when you bought your home, and you are now upgrading or downsizing in the same area, finding the right agent simply means making a phone call to someone you already trust. But what if you have not worked with an agent, or if you did, your experience left a bad taste? Tip #3 in Sell Your Home in Any Market : Sal’s Top 10 Tips shows you how to pick a real estate agent that always has your best interests at heart. And if you choose to sell your home without a real estate agent, Tip #3 guides you through the process of marketing your home on your own. If you are selling your home, you have heard the term “staging.” Clean out overstuffed closets, apply a fresh coat of paint to neglected rooms, replace worn out window dressings with fresh curtains, shampoo or replace soiled carpets, add pleasant scents with candles and home baked cookies, plant fresh flowers and shrubs, or trim the old ones. All these steps, and more, enhance your home’s appeal, and will make more buyers willing to pay more. That your decorating tastes do not match the buyers is not as important as the home’s condition. A clean, fresh, and bright home—regardless of the furnishings—says something different than a soiled, worn, and gloomy home. Your goal is to make potential buyers believe they and their furnishings are a perfect fit for your home. Tip #4 in Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal’s Top 10 Tips shows you how to prepare your home for sale by putting on its best face. You may be surprised by how much you can accomplish without depleting your savings. If you take just a few of the steps I recommend to brighten your home’s smile, you will boost your home’s appeal—and the more buyers who like your home, the higher its value. Say your home is located on a busy road? You probably bought that home because it was priced lower than nearby homes not on a busy road. When you decide to sell, the obvious strategy is to price your home below comparable homes not on the road. Why limit your selling strategy to the obvious? Think about the types of buyers who might prefer a home many people pass driving to or from someplace else—dentists, doctors, psychologists, lawyers, accountants, and others looking to operate a business or profession from their homes. If your city or town’s zoning regulations allow a home to double as a place of business, consider marketing to these types of professionals. Tip #5 in Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal’s Top 10 Tips helps you weigh your home’s strengths and weaknesses, and shows you strategies for turning what you may perceive as weaknesses into strengths. Tip #6 in Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal’s Top 10 Tips explores all the ways you can help your real estate agent sell your home quickly and for the highest price. I show you how to proactively participate in your home’s marketing, and what mistakes you should avoid that may cause you to work against your own best interests. For example, I never recommend a homeowner stay home during an agent-sponsored open house. Why create even the possibility you might inadvertently say something to turn off a potential buyer? Tip #6 is essential reading for anyone who wants a leg up on the competition.
Tip #1: Don’t list your home until you know why you're selling.
In a declining market, sellers are often slow to accept the reality of falling prices. They do what I call “chase the market down.” They lower their price expectation in gradual increments, but each time they do, their lower asking price lags the home’s falling market value. Some sellers, in a rising market sometimes do the opposite. They set their asking price too low, and miss out on big profits. This most often happens when a seller is not represented by a qualified real estate agent—an agent who conducts a comprehensive market trend analysis to determine a home’s true worth.
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Tip #3: Pick a listing agent as you would a business partner.
You are not required to use a real estate agent when you buy or sell a home. I have bought and sold homes without the help of an agent. But without doubt, the transactions that have gone most smoothly are those where I hired a qualified real estate agent to assist me.
Unless you have meticulously cleaned and maintained your home inside and out every day since the day you moved in, before you list your home for sale, you must prepare your home for market. Does that mean getting your hands dirty? Yes. Does that mean spending some money? Yes. Does that mean living in your own home more like a guest than an owner until you sell? Yes. Does that mean if you follow Tip #4 you will get a higher price for your home than if you do nothing? Yes.
Many sellers have a high self-image of their homes, and price their homes accordingly. I have also known sellers who focus on the negative aspects and features of their home, and undermine its value. Maybe you think your home is too small, too old, too far from the town center, or too near to the neighbor from hell. Every home has a buyer, and one of your goals as a seller is to identify what type of buyers are most likely to want your particular home, and focus your marketing efforts on them.
Invariably, the sellers who sell their homes fastest and for the most money are those who actively help market their homes. Don’t rely on your agent’s advertising, open houses, and placement in a Multiple Listing Service. Get involved. Print your own flyers and brochures, write your own advertisements, place your own ads on websites for home sellers, post your own “for sale” signs in strategic locations, and offer creative incentives to buyers.
What do you do if your home has been languishing on the market for months with hardly a nibble of interest from a buyer. Is the problem your real estate agent or broker? Maybe, but in my experience, usually not. Is your pricing incorrect? No one likes to ask that question, let alone hear the answer, but if your price is bucking local housing trends, you must consider the possibility. Have you gotten any negative feedback from potential buyers that has started playing like a broken disc? If so, now is the time to take stock. I share my method for objectively assessing the reasons a home isn’t selling in Tip #7 in Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal’s Top 10 Tips. I suggest specific adjustments you can make to put your home-selling plan back on track. I also explore alternative selling strategies, and alternatives to selling at all, if you absolutely cannot lower your price.
Whether you must sell quickly due to financial circumstances, or have all the time in the world and can wait until hell freezes before you sell, you want the highest price for your home a ready, willing, and able buyer will pay. Rare is the seller who finds a cash buyer for the full asking price eager to close yesterday with no contingencies for a mortgage, inspections, or insurance. Unless you sell in a sizzling market where you have priced your home below market value, you must invariably negotiate price after an interested buyer submits an initial offer.
Tip #8 in Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal’s Top 10 Tips teaches you the bargaining strategies that have helped me sell homes for more. Although I suggest a mathematical approach to countering an initial offer and all subsequent counteroffers, understand that no formula can predict how far below your asking price you must go to sell your home. Too many variables hard to measure—local and regional housing trends, your home’s condition, location, and features, the skill and experience of your real estate agent, and the unique circumstances of the buyer. These all affect your home’s ultimate selling price.
Don’t make lower price your only incentive to entice a buyer. Although most real estate agents abide by the mantra, “We sell real estate, not furniture,” do not hesitate to include personal property with the sale of your home if doing so makes the difference between landing a contract, or letting a buyer go. I once had a client who lost a sale in a down market because he refused to throw in the snow blower he bought the year before. I guess that could be a deal breaker for some, but in this case the guy was moving to
A seller approaches a real estate contract differently than a buyer. Both rely on the contract to protect their rights, but the rights a seller needs protected are not the same a buyer wants protected. For buyers, a contract’s number one job is to protect their deposit money. If the sale does not close, buyers want to know they will get back their earnest deposit. The front line of defense for protecting a buyer’s deposit is the contract of sale.
Sellers are mosly concerned with two things:
1. Does the buyer have the ability to purchase the home?
2. To what extent, if any, is the seller responsible for correcting problems or defects found in the home, usually by a professional home inspector hired by the buyer?
Residential real estate contracts usually give buyers the right to cancel the contract and get back their earnest deposit if they do not get approved for a mortgage by a certain date. This is commonly called the contract’s “mortgage contingency.” Before sellers sign a contract with a mortgage contingency, they should make every effort to determine how likely the buyers are to get approved for the loan they need. A home is usually kept off the market until the mortgage contingency is satisfied (i.e., the buyers get approved for their mortgage), or exercised (i.e., the buyers fail to qualify for a mortgage, and want their deposit back). During periods of tight credit and high lending standards, that time off the market could extend from 45 to 60 days, sometimes longer. No seller wants their home kept off the market for two months only to learn the buyers cannot get a mortgage.
Don’t give buyers more time than is reasonably necessary to get approved for a mortgage. The time period should depend on prevailing lending conditions, not the buyers’ unique situation. The contract should also let you accept back-up offers until the buyers satisfy their mortgage contingency.
Most sellers allow buyers to get a professional home inspection. This is not necessarily a bad thing for sellers. When buyers hire a professional inspector, if an undiscovered problem or defect arises after closing, the buyers may have a harder time claiming they relied on the seller’s representations about the home’s condition. In that way, the buyer’s home inspection affords some degree of protection to the sellers. However, sellers should not give buyers too long a period after the contract is signed to have the home inspected, and then decide, based on the inspection results, they don’t want to proceed with the purchase. As with the mortgage contingency, you do not want your home kept off the market too long.
Tip #9 in Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal’s Top 10 Tips explores these and other contract issues vital to you, and suggest ways of using the contract to better protect your rights and interests,
Your home is sold, and the buyers satisfied the contract contingencies. You are all done. Well, not quite.
Unless you are including all your clothes, dishware, and furniture with the sale of your home, you must pack your belongings. If you agreed with the buyers to make certain repairs or replacements before closing, you must call and schedule appointments with suppliers and contractors. If you are buying another home right after you sell your current home, you must make the funds you net from the sale of your current home immediately available to draw on for the purchase of your next home. You do not want to pay your buyer’s utility bills after you move, so arrange to cancel your utility accounts before closing. Selling a home often has income tax consequences, and you should know what those are before you sell.
Tip #10 in Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal’s Top 10 Tips does what it says – ties up all the loose ends of selling a home. Some are obvious, others may surprise you. Tip #10 makes sure you don’t get surprised.
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If you want HomeDingo to notify you when Sal's book, Sell Your Home in Any Market: Sal’s Top 10 Tips, becomes available for sale, click on the link below and send us an e-mail. As soon as his home sellers guide is available, HomeDingo will send you an e-mail with information on how you can order your own copy.
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