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Today’s Top Tips And Tricks For First Time Home Sellers

[fa icon="calendar"] Jul 12, 2016 12:28:36 PM / by Eustis Mortgage

Eustis Mortgage

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With so many of today’s mortgage blogs detailing the process of buying a first home, it’s hard not to understand how you should prepare for your first home buying experience. When it comes to SELLING your first home, however, there is not a lot of information to guide homeowners through the process. In this article, we will explain the most important steps to make your first home selling experience simple and rewarding—we promise it isn’t as scary as it seems!

  1. 1. Prepare your home for the market: Many homeowners don’t realize how important it is to get your home ready for the market before you list it. The first step in this stage of the process is getting a home inspection, or an assessment of the property’s condition. By determining the home’s deficiencies at an early stage in the process, you provide yourself with a longer time period to repair the damages—this will ultimately expedite the buying process and may even allow you to increase the listing price!
  2. The next step to prepare your home for the market is to make small low-cost improvements—these cheap renovations will make your home look good as new! Some improvements to consider are:
    1. -Repainting each room
    2. -Upgrading light fixtures
    3. -Upgrading cabinet hardware
    4. -Professionally cleaning floors and carpets
    5. -Replacing outdated faucets and showerheads
    6. -Replacing toilet seats
    7. -Sprucing up the landscaping
  3. These improvements are all about making a great first impression on potential homebuyers. It will be more difficult to sell your home if it lacks curb appeal and looks outdated. By taking these additional steps beforehand, your home is likely sell much quicker, which will save you tons of time and money.
  4. 2. Hire a top realtor: Avoiding a realtor is one of the most commonly made mistakes in the home selling process. It’s very important to understand that selling a home requires expertise that many first time homeowners do not possess. In fact, “for sale by owner” accounts actually have a failure rate of 85-95 percent. Not just any real estate agent will do the trick, though—make sure you hire an agent that has experience SELLING homes. In order to ensure you select the perfect agent, follow these interview tips from Realtor Magazine.
  5. 3. Understand your local housing market: Before you plant that “for sale” sign in front of your house, consider when your local market experiences a SELLERS’ MARKET. This is the time of year when you are more likely to receive the most offers. Generally, sellers’ markets are in full effect during the spring, but it’s best to do some research to determine the best time to sell a home in your area.
  6. 4. Price your home appropriately: Homes frequently spend a long time on the market solely because they are not priced correctly. The reason home sellers experience this problem is because of a common misconception: the home should be priced according to its assessed value. Instead, an experienced real estate agent should determine a fair selling price based on a comparative market analysis (CMA). This assesses locally active homes for sale, past homes for sale, and past expired listings— in many cases, this assessment considerably reduces the time a house is on the market!
  7. 5. Know your closing expenses: Upon closing, you will have to pay a variety of fees and commissions to third parties involved. These can include finishing up mortgage payments, fees owed to the selling agents, and possibly some repairs agreed upon in the terms of sale. These are normal, and with proper preparation, can be only minor inconveniences. A loan officer can help you pre-determine these fees.

Selling your home is a thrilling experience! Talk to one of our mortgage specialists today for more information on how to prepare for selling your first home.

Topics: mortgage news, first time home sellers

Eustis Mortgage

Written by Eustis Mortgage

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