No matter how much time you have to prepare, it can be overwhelming to think about all of the steps involved in selling your home.
What happens after you decide to sell your home? Your first step is to assemble your real estate team. This means interviewing REALTORS to help you sell your home. During these interviews, you’ll likely learn about what you might list it for, how the market will respond to your listing, and how much money you might net. There are many other steps in the home selling process, and you will hear more about them as you go through your listing consultation. There is a lot of information, but your real estate team will be there for you every step of the way.
{Click here to download our Home Selling Guide}
Note: We are based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. If you are planning to sell your house in a different area, we can match you with an excellent local agent. Give us a call (719-321-0800) or email us (susanna@co-regroup.com) for a referral.
How long does a listing consultation take?
Listing consultations can be as short as 1 hour, but they typically take about 1.5 – 2 hours. Our goal is to get to know you and learn about any time restraints or concerns you have. Home sellers usually have a lot of questions, and we love helping people understand the process so they can make informed decisions. Last but not least, we will want to see the home and make note of details and upgrades to help us determine the best sales price.
Related Reading:
Steps to Sell a Home
Home Selling Frequently Asked Questions
Getting to know you
We are trying to accomplish one goal as a team: sell your house: It is very important that we work together and communicate well. We will need to have frequent communication, particularly during the set up and then after the home is under contract. We will ask you the following questions during the consultation:
- Why you are moving? It’s important to be open about your reason for selling so that we can plan a strategy that reflects your needs. Are you working with a builder and there is a requirement that you have you home under contract within 2 – 4 weeks? If so, your home price will need to be competitive in order to solicit a quick offer.
- How soon do you need to move? Will you need to lease back the home from the buyer for a certain time until your new home closes? Or do you have all the time in the world to wait for a great offer?
- What would be an acceptable selling price for you? You might say that price is a REALTOR’s job to figure out. Trust me: real estate agents have an opinion about home value. But it is important to know what your expectations are in order to see if we need to discuss pricing in more detail and possibly create a new strategy.
- What if your home doesn’t sell? Markets change. The Colorado Springs real estate market has gone up continually for that last 10 years. But any number of factors can cause shifts in market dynamics. A good real estate agent studies the market and knows it well. But we aren’t fortune tellers, and nothing is guaranteed in a changing market. It’s always a good idea to have a backup plan in case your home doesn’t sell.
Getting to know your home and your neighborhood
It is difficult to get a precise home value until we have seen the home or property in person. The same is true for your neighborhood. The motto “location, location, location” is still valid for any home buyer. Any information you can provide about your neighborhood, or even just your street, will be a big part of selling your home. You’ve lived there so you know it best.
Tell us about your neighborhood!
We will ask about your favorite features are in the home and what made you choose it when you were house hunting. These are important points that will allow us to figure out what current buyers might find appealing about your home. These features can be marketed to potential buyers.
- What do you like about the neighborhood?
- Is it close to a school?
- Do you have a fabulous cul de sac with awesome neighbors?
- What are your favorite nearby amenities?
The flip side? It’s also important to know what you don’t like about your home. What is the one thing you would change or improve about the house?
Related Reading: 12 Reasons to Hire Colorado Real Estate Group
Home listing process
There are a lot of things about the selling process we just can’t control. As a listing agent, we strive to empower you to control everything that can be controlled in the process. During your listing consultation, we will want to explain these steps so you can get started on the right foot:
-
-
-
- Preparation of your home [and yourself]
- Presentation of your home
- Pricing your home accurately
- Promotion of your home
-
-
Preparation
Here are some very general guidelines to consider. We will talk about them in more detail during the listing consultation.
- De-clutter your home. You want buyers to walk through your home freely and let them imagine themselves in your home. Pro Tip: you don’t need to remove ALL your personal items and pictures from your home. Just take it down a notch or two.
- While you de-clutter, you will notice things in your home that need touching up or repair. Now is the time to get this done. Fill holes, fix drywall or doors, paint, and have major home systems serviced.
- Clean. This goes hand in hand with any maintenance that needs to be done in the home. Make potential buyers feel like your home is impeccably maintained and care for. People will notice the cleanliness and will appreciate it.
- Consider a pre-listing home inspection. The number one deal killer in any real estate transaction is the home inspection. Why? Once you receive an offer for your property, 80% of the negotiation power shifts to the buyer. Many sellers have their home pre-inspected. It will allow you to handle any potential issues with the property BEFORE you receive a purchase offer, and it reduces surprises during the contract period. It’s also wonderful to be able to address any repairs without the time constraint of a contract.
Related Reading:
Presentation
When will your home be listed? We’ll discuss the time frame for when you want to have the home ready for our professional photographer to take pictures. The goal is to make a prospective buyer say “Wow! What a house!” and compel them to come and visit. It just takes ONE buyer to sell your house! The majority of home buyers start their home search online. These pictures have to be crisp and attention grabbing. A home is only listed when the photographs are available.
From our Instagram account
Pricing
Pricing a home is part science and part art, but it shouldn’t be an experiment: “Let’s list it higher, to see what we can get” or “Let’s list it higher so we have some negotiating room.”
The value of your home is not based on:
- How much equity you have in the home
- What you need out of it
- What you want
- What it appraised for
- What you heard your neighbor’s house sold for
- What the tax office (or Zillow) says it’s worth
- What it would cost to replace it
- The prices of homes where you are moving
- The true market value of your home is what a buyer will pay for it
Your home price is based on what a buyer will pay based on:
- Today’s market
- Today’s competition
- Today’s financing
- Today’s economic conditions
- The buyer’s perception of the condition of the property
- The location
Pay attention to how many showings you have:
- If you have a lot of showings but no offer, you are about 1% off in your pricing.
- If you have some showings and no offer, you are 3-5% off in your home price.
- If you only have one or two showings, you are probably completely overpriced and need to revisit your strategy.
Related Reading: Pricing your home to sell
Promotion
Last but not least, we want you to know how we promote your home beyond just the photographs.
When it comes to online marketing, other agents may try to convince you that they have a secret sauce. Here is the bottom line: the more eyeballs on your listing, the better. The MLS (Multiple Listing Service) syndicates to thousands of websites and all agents will list your home in the MLS. Nothing special there. We are members of 2 MLS’s and advertise your listing up and down the Front Range.
We use our very active Facebook and social media tools to ensure that your home is seen by thousands of potential buyers. More importantly, we are able share your listing with our Facebook Groups filled with potential home buyers. We also email the listing announcement out to our complete database.
Showings
We will need to discuss in detail how to make the home available to show potential buyers while considering your life and needs. We have a showing service that is available 24/7 to avoid losing any potential buyers who want to request a showing.
Sellers roadmap
We know this already a lot of information, but we will definitely touch on the sales process itself. This will not be a detailed discussion, but you need to have an overview of what to expect. Once we have an offer, we’ll review the offer and the process with all details.
In the end, we want to help you move forward to the life you desire. Call us (719-321-0800) or email us (susanna@co-regroup.com) to schedule your listing consultation. Click the picture below to download our Home Selling Guide to get detailed information about home selling steps, checklists for preparing your home, and g
