Selling your home is a big decision and you should NOT do it alone! Help from a licensed Real Estate Agent will provide you with the knowledge, tools and experience you will need to sell your home. Below we list 9 things you need to know to help get your home sold!
1. Call A Full-Time Realtor
Find out if the real estate agent is a full-time agent or not. Full-time agents are more likely to be tuned in to what’s going on in the current market versus a part-time agent. Full-time agents will likely have access to larger networks and resources that can help get your home sold.
2. Ask for the Truth About How to Prepare
Preparing to sell a home can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be! A great real estate agent will always be truthful about how to prepare you home for sale. They will know the general guidelines, tips and tricks to help you prepare and get the best price for your property. to prepare your home for sale. They should explain what to expect during the home selling process along with the benefits of staging and preparing your home for sale.
3. Manage Expectations
Unfortunately, having a clean home ready to sell is not always good enough in the eyes of a buyer.
4. Start Your Online Research
Chances are you already have if you found this website because you are interested in selling your home. You can get a good idea of a price range for your home by looking at homes for sale near you. We recommend using this tool: Home Search
5. Find an Agent That Works for You
Not all agents are a good fit for your home. Some seller’s agents may concentrate on a particular type of home or price range. If your house doesn’t fall within that specialty or price range, that agent may not be qualified or motivated to show your home. The agent also may not have a ready pool of buyers looking for a home like yours.
6. Recommendations Aren’t Everything
It is smart to get recommendations for a real estate agent to sell your home, for one bad real estate agents don’t get referred. However, you shouldn’t stop on someone’s recommendation. That should only be your first step. You really ought to talk to at least three agents and have them each to visit you and walk through your home. The prepared agent will bring information with them about recent comparable sales, will help you price your home, and they should suggest low-cost upgrades that will boost your home’s value and help it sell more quickly.
7. Talk to a Lender
Talk to a lender if you are planning to buy a new home. You’ll want to have your housing plan figured out before you put your home on the market.
8. Qualifications and Expertise
You may want to find out if the agents you are talking to have completed any specialized training or earned any industry designations such as: negotiating, working with first-time buyers, or selling green or historic homes. You might get a sense of their qualifications and expertise because typically you’ll see designations from industry organizations like the Graduate REALTOR Institute (GRI) or Certified Residential Specialist (CRS) from the National Association of REALTORS.
9. Marketing Plan
Ask agents how they’d market your home. A good real estate agent will tell you the best way to market your home. Beware of agents who talk in generalities or brush you off with a “let me worry about the details” attitude. Get answers to basic questions: Will you hold open houses? If so, how often? Will you place ads in local newspapers or real estate websites and, if so, which ones are best suited for my home and why?
