Well selling a house is not as easy as it sounds. You might think that a house can just be listed and with an exchange of cash your house will be sold. It is not so simple.
There are a lot of factors that can affect the selling of the house. Some of the factors can be controlled while the others are out of your hand. The market is also going to play an important factor in selling of the house.
You would want to sell your house as soon as possible and that too at a good price that’s only natural. For that you need to understand the method.
How to Sell Your House?
There are some things that you need to do while selling your house. It is not a simple process like in the books. It is a much-complicated process and you need to work on it to make the best deal.
No worries though because we are here for you. We have brought this article here today so that you can understand how to sell a house.
Read through all the steps and you will definitely understand. So without any further delay, let’s get right into it.
1 Hire an Agent Who Knows The Market
The best thing that you can do first is to hire a professional real estate agent who knows the market. Now, this might have been a tough thing in the past but it is much easier nowadays.
With the help of the internet, you can easily find the profiles of good real estate agents and see their working history and designation for yourself. The real estate agent can do your work for you. It is an easy way to put your house on the market.
2. Set a Timeline For Selling Your Home
Selling a house is a huge deal. It will take some time. It usually takes around 4 months. It can be longer though depending on the situation of the market.As soon as you decide to sell the house you need to start looking for real estate agents.
You will also need to do a home inspection to check for mechanical or structural defects that need to be repaired before you sell your house.
This will require some time so it is better to put that time aside. About a month before listing you need to start preparing the house by deep cleaning and staging it.
3. Get a Pre-sale Home Inspection
Do you want to get a hassle and drama free sale? Then get that home inspection done, please. Yes, it will cost money but it is totally worth it because your house will sell faster without any problem.
When the customer does their own home inspection then you will already be ahead of them and you can make the necessary repairs beforehand.
The pre-sale home inspection will also allow you to know any major or minor issues with the house. This is going to be a good investment so do not skip out on it.
4. Don’t Waste Money on Needless Upgrades
Please don’t waste your money on needless upgrades. We know many people fall in trap of this thinking that the more beautiful their house looks more people will be interested in it.
What they don’t understand is that by doing unnecessary upgrades they are also increasing the price of their home in accordance to the neighborhood. A real estate agent can help you here.
They can tell you that what kind of house a person will look for in a particular neighborhood and can advise you to plan your upgrades according to that.I mean there is no need to get granite countertops and skylights if no one wants it!
5. Get Professional Photos
Professional photos are important too. You can hire a professional photographer to shoot your house pictures which will be displayed in your listing.
A good photo can attract a lot of customers. A dimpy lit photo is going to turn off the customers though. High-quality photo is essential.
6. Put Your House On the Market
Next, you put your house on the market. To make for a easy sell you need to make a strong online appeal first. You also need to take good pictures while stated above.
Good pictures can play a major role in getting your house sold. The key here is to remove all the traces of your personal belonging when you are clicking pictures of the house.
Make sure that its neat and clean and also stage the area to an extent. When you put the house on the Market you need to set a good reasonable price of the house too.
7. Set a Realistic Price
You need to set a realistic price for your house. Just like goldilocks you need to find the perfect price of the house to set. You can not set it too high because then no one will want it and the play will back fire.
If you place the price too low then also it’s a loss for you. You need to check and compare the price of properties around you. The real estate agent can help you here greatly since they can easily access the info.
We recommend doing your research before you go and put a price on your house.
8. Review and Negotiate Offers
This is where you need your real estate agent the most. If the market is good then you will definitely get multiple offers where the buyers will try to pay the listed price or even above.
This will allow you to take your pick. However if the market is slow and does not favour sellers then you might need to wait to get even one offer and then you have to negotiate. You can negotiate directly or ask your real estate agent to do the job for you.
9. Anticipate Seller Closing Costs
The closing cost is not only for the buyer. The seller has a closing cost too. It is usually in the form of commission to the real estate agent.
The commission is around 5 to 6 percent of the selling cost of the house.There are some other costs that the seller has to take care of. They are –
- Government transfer tax
- Recording fees
- Outstanding liens
If the buyer has negotiated any closing cost for the repair then the seller needs to pay that too. Your real estate agent will provide you with a complete list of the closing cost that you need to pay.
10. Weigh the Tax Implications
The good news is finally coming. You won’t have to usually pay taxes on the profit of selling your home. If you have lived two years in your said home then there is no tax to be paid on any profit up to 250,000 dollars.
However, if the profit exceeds that amount then you might need to pay the tax. For a married couple the amount will increase up to 500,000 dollars. This will increase in both the cases.
11. Gather Necessary Paperwork to Close
Well whenever there is a sale there is a paper work involved. There are lot of documents that you will need to close. Some of them are mentioned below –
- Your home’s original purchase contract is necessary to prove that you are the homeowner.
- Appraisal from your home purchase
- Property survey, certificate of occupancy, and certificates of compliance with local codes
- Mortgage documents
- Tax records is necessary
- Home inspection report, if you did one (we highly recommend doing this)
- Homeowners insurance
If there are any additional information or documents required then your real estate agent will let you know.
12. Consider Hiring a Real Estate Attorney
You do not legally require a real estate attorney for every state but it is advised to bring one professional to the closing of the deal. You can hire one for yourself.
They will do the paperwork, identify potential issues, review contracts and documents, and ensure the sale goes as smoothly as possible.
This is the end of the journey. You have worked hard for your sale. Now it is time for you to enjoy the fruits of labor.
Conclusion
We hope that this article here has been proved to be useful to the readers. We have tried our best to include everything that you need to know while selling your house. So try to follow the steps that we have given and you will definitely sell your house in no time.
Do consider sharing this article with others who are willing to sell their house too. We sincerely hope that you are successful in selling your home at a good price.
Thank you for giving this article a read. Do leave your thoughts on the article in the comment section below. Have a good day!