I Buy Houses, Land, Apartments, Self-Storage

Home Selling Checklist

It’s not an easy job selling a house. It’s a process. You just don’t put up a For Sale By Owner sign in your front yard, meet a buyer, negotiate and sell it, but there is a checklist to sell your house. The home selling checklists include some procedures you must do in order to prepare for the sale.

This is the checklist you must pay more attention to sell your house:
-    Decide whether you pay an agent to sell your house or you just do it by yourself. Paying a real estate agent gives you peace of mind and takes some of the other selling expenses off your budget. An agent will carry out most of your home selling checklist. You just hire an agent and pay him at the closing. But it will cost more of course. So, it’s up to you to pay a little more of your equity or gamble that you can sell the home for close to the market price thus saving the commission.
-    Be a communicative and informed seller. It is part of your marketing strategy. You can use media to promote your home, such as newspaper ads,  free online classified ads, pamphlets, DVD, or websites. Don’t forget to put a reasonable and market price for your house. The selling price can greatly influence the time on the market.
-    Get your house ready to sell by cleaning up debris, get the yard and landscaping properly done. Make your house’s exterior, interior, and appliances clean and tidy.  Paint if needed. Make sure everything works. You must create curb appeal.
-    Decide whether to pay a professional home inspector to do a  pre-listing house inspection or not.
-    Sell some of your unnecessary furniture and appliances and remove and place into a storage facility excess household items and clothes. You want the house to look spacious and uncluttered.
-    Get familiar with financing terms, such as mortgage financing (fixed, adjustable, seller financing, assumable loans), pre-qualified, pre-approved, commitment
-    Get familiar with negotiation tactics and legal documents, such as a contract of sale, estimate of closing costs, Fair Housing laws etc. You should learn as much as you can about the legal transaction process.
-    Do cosmetic improvements first. Then improve  interior and exterior items that are cost effective to make that also improve saleability. You can not improve your location, or neighborhood, etc.
-    Decide whether you will purchase a home warranty for your home buyer or not.
-    Find some tips to buy a new house while you are selling your old one.
-    Decide  where to have the closing and settlement. Have a title search started on your home’s legal title.
-    Make moving plans.

The home selling checklist above shows us that there are many considerations to sell a house. You should pay attention to the home selling checklist and do the steps in an orderly fashion. But if you decide to pay a Real Estate Agent to sell your house, just let them carry out the points above and your learning curve in home selling will be reduced; not to mention your stress level.