Getting Your House Sold

How your house looks is arguably the most important and controllable ticket to a successful sale. Whether that means going all out and completing a major renovation or simply updating light fixtures and painting your walls a fresh new color, keeping up with current trends is extremely important.  Buyers are more likely to offer full price or even over asking to avoid having to make any updates themselves.  At Chabal Real Estate, we’ll walk you through the most current colors, styles, & trends related to all parts of your house.  We’ll help you formulate a custom plan to fit your budget, no matter how large or small.  The end goal is to make your house stand out, to make it more attractive than the other active listings on the market.

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Price directly influences who will be interested in scheduling a showing of your home.  There are many pricing strategies, and each one depends on the local real estate market is in your area.  Generally, you want to price your home to get the most exposure to the highest number of potential buyers.  The trick here is to show the most value compared to your competition.  The value of your home is based on many things, but in a very competitive market it’s defined simply as what a buyer is willing to pay for it.  We will work with you to ensure that pricing your home aligns with your personal financial goals.  As part of our discussions, we recommend our client’s consult a mortgage pay-off calculator to understand how much money they will receive at the close of their sale based on how much equity they have in the home.

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Here at Chabal Real Estate, we are FIRM believers in staging to sell your home.  Staged homes garner, on average, a 6% to 10% higher offer price than their un-staged counterparts.  This price increase almost always exponentially outweighs the cost of the staging.  Even if you don’t opt for full staging, implementing some of our recommendations such as rearranging furniture, decluttering and depersonalizing, and getting rid of pet and kids’ belongings will ensure that your house shows the best.  A deep cleaning is always a must prior to listing your home, and complimented with a few other tips we provide will ensure buyers are viewing your home at its finest.

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Once your home is ready for buyers, it’s time to officially get it on the market.  It’s our job at Chabal Real Estate to get your house in front of as many buyers as possible.  We utilize many channels to do so, including professional photography, paid search advertising on Google and other high traffic sites, and utilizing our extensive internal network of other real estate professionals.  We pride ourselves in our Social Media expertise and utilize these channels to get your home in front of as many people as possible. We will coordinate showings on your behalf, and depending on the market conditions it may even be a good time to take a short weekend trip if many buyers will be touring your home for an extended period of time.  Our listing agents are professionals, and will treat your house as our own.  

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All of your hard work will pay off when you receive an offer; you may even receive multiple offers depending on the current Real Estate Market.  Deciding what kind of offer to accept will depend on where your priorities lie.  Below are the components of an offer you may receive.  It’s our job at Chabal Real Estate to walk you through each component of an offer and advise on when or how to counter.

-         Price: The total amount offered by the buyer to the seller, not including any seller concessions.

-         Seller Concessions: The amount of money a buyer can ask a seller to pay at closing to help the buyer cover closing costs and other short term expenses the buyer may incur.

-         Contingencies: Generally, an offer will be contingent on a couple of items being satisfied.  The two most common contingencies are (1) buyer being satisfied with a Home Inspection and (2)the buyer’s lender appraising the house at the purchase price.

-         Close Date: The date the buyer and seller agree to close the transaction.  Generally, a home purchase takes anywhere from 30-60 days, with 45 days being about average.

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Before you can officially close on the sale of your house, you will be responsible for fulfilling the obligations laid out in the contract.  If you have agreed to complete any repairs for the buyer you will be required to provide written documentation that the repairs were made.  It’s during this time that you should begin organizing and packing your belongings to be completely out of the house by the agreed upon close date.  You will also officially sign over the deed to your house and provide any other pertinent documentation that may help the new home buyer.

While you are preparing to transfer your home to the new buyer, the purchaser will be working diligently with their lender or financing provider to make sure everything is in order for the closing date.  It’s our job to keep a constant line of communication open with the buyer’s representation so that both parties fulfill their legal obligation and the closing happens on time.  

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With the arrival of the closing date, you should be completely moved out of the home.  The buyer will conduct one last final walkthrough of the home before signing their closing documents, and soon after signing the keys will be delivered to them.  The new deed will be recorded with the local municipality and funds will be transferred to you.  Congratulations, you just successfully sold your house with Chabal Real Estate!