8 Steps You Must Take Before Selling Your Home
Before you ever put your house on the market, it’s important that you take a few key steps first. These steps are to ensure that you have the most successful outcome on the market as a home seller.
What You Should Do Before Listing Your Property
1. Get Pre-Approved for a Home Loan
It’s a shame but it happens. Sometimes sellers sign the contract on their current home, only to realize that they’re not qualified to purchase another home. This may happen for a slew of reasons, including that their income has changed. So before you sell your current home, make sure you’ll be able to find another place to go.
2. Check Your Mortgage Payoff
Be sure to call your lender in order to learn what the payoff for your current home mortgage is. This will help you when calculating #6 below.
3. Determine How Much the House Is Worth
A qualified real estate agent can help you with this. By determining your home’s fair market value, it will enable you to set the right list price for your home, which will in turn help you sell your home quickly. This will also come in handy during the appraisal process.
4. Calculate Your Costs to Sell
There are a number of costs associated with the sale of your home, including:
- Real estate commission
- Advertising costs if you plan to sell by owner.
- Attorney and closing agent fees.
- Excise tax for the sale.
- Prorated costs for annual expenses, such as property taxes and home owner association fees
- And more
Of course, this figure will initially just be an estimate. But if you include the above items, it should be a fairly accurate estimate.
5. Determine Your Costs to Acquire a New Home
Buying a home isn’t without its own expenses. These include: moving expenses, loan costs, down payment, title work, home inspections and more. Your lender should be able to help you in determining what this total figure is.
6. Determine Your Estimated Proceeds
You can do this by subtracting your mortgage payoff from your home's fair market value. Then, you’ll want to subtract all the costs associated with the sale of your home. This should give you a good idea of the proceeds you’ll make at closing.
7. Address Any Home Repairs Now
Yes, some home sellers would rather put their home on the market as is and hope that the buyers don’t notice certain glaring issues. But that’s probably not going to happen because many buyers hire inspectors. Thus, go ahead and get the hassle out of the way by addressing the major repair issues in your home. It will make your home more marketable and it will help speed up the home sale process.
8.Prepare Your Home for Showings
It’s just about time to put that For Sale sign in the yard so go ahead and get your home ready to show. This means a thorough cleaning, a decluttering of your home, cleaning up the front yard for curb appeal and more!
How Can We Assist With The Sale of Your Home?
For more useful tips on how you can have a successful experience on the local housing market, be sure to contact us, your dedicated real estate experts. We would love to assist you at every stage of the process!