SMART ESSENTIALS FOR SELLING YOUR HOME. Deborah Rhoney

elements involved. Then you can concentrate on the pieces that you control … and leave the details to the professionals.

      With that in mind, here are the 10 essential steps to selling your home.

10 KEY STEPS TO SELLING YOUR HOME

      1. Pick a real estate agent who will help you choose the best asking price and marketing plan to get your home sold. (In today’s market, you’ll find selling without professional representation difficult, at best.)

      2. Review all your marketing options, including financing, incentives and other deal “sweeteners” to beat the competition to a fast sale.

      3. Make repairs or improvements that will increase the marketability of your home.

      4. List your home for sale at a smart price.

      5. Make it easy for your home to be shown to prospective buyers.

      6. Consider offers and negotiate the best sales contract on your terms.

      7. Order inspections, if they’re your responsibility as seller.

      8. Stand by as appraisals, surveys and inspections are conducted and your buyer lines up financing.

       9. Go to settlement.^^

      10. Move out of your old home and into your new life.

      ^^Settlement The process of finalizing the sales contract between buyer and seller. In some areas, this is referred to as “closing” or “escrow.” Throughout this guide, we’ll simply call it settlement, which may take place in an office, where both parties (and usually their representatives) come together to sign final documents and exchange funds. In other cases, settlement may be handled from separate locations.

      Still, not everything will go perfectly. Now that you’ve seen the roadmap ahead, this is where things can get hairy. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty — the top 10 costliest mistakes even smart sellers make.

TOP 10 REALLY BIG SELLING MISTAKES TO AVOID

      Once you’ve made a big selling mistake, it is often too late to correct it. That’s why we’re sharing the 10 worst mistakes most home sellers make right up front. Avoid them and you’ll be well on your way to a successful sale.

      1. Setting the wrong price. Picking the right listing price sells a home faster than any other factor. Underpricing a home could cost you money — lots of it! Overpricing a home can yield the exact same result — except it will take longer to get there. We’ll explain more later.

      2. Selling “as-is” condition. In today’s competitive market, most buyers won’t even consider a home that needs repairs. They’re looking for attractive, move-in condition — think model home. Buyers who must tackle fix-ups will lower their offers accordingly. You’ll pay the costs one way or another, so you might as well get those issues handled beforehand and speed the sale of your home.

      3. Ignoring curb appeal. What your home looks like on the outside — its “curb appeal” — is one of the most essential factors to a successful sale (right up there with pricing). Online home shoppers tend to fall in love with a home they see on the Internet. But a positive impression online can be undone at the curb by unkempt landscaping, peeling paint, crooked shutters, etc. Those deal-killing mistakes will not be counteracted by the most-perfect floor plan or a tasteful interior — assuming the buyer even bothers to go inside.

      4. Overlooking cosmetics. Dirt just doesn’t sell — clean everything! It’s fast, it’s cheap and it pays off handsomely, even if you have to hire a service. The next best dollar-for-dollar investment for selling your home: fresh paint in neutral colors. After that, consider new carpeting — replaced for either condition or color. You’ll learn plenty about this topic later in the guide.

      5. Lavishly over-improving. While it’s important to fix, clean and brighten your home to get it ready for sale, steer clear of major/expensive improvements that won’t return their cost at sale time. Spending too much on remodeling projects just drains money from your net proceeds. (However, some major projects, like replacing a roof, should be done if they’re needed.)

      6. Being inflexible about financing. The more buyers you can appeal to in terms of financing, the greater your chances of selling faster. Be flexible about accepting Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Affairs (VA) financing, offering seller financing, paying settlement costs, providing a decorating allowance or other incentives attractive to buyers.

      7. Falling prey to “General Custer syndrome.” Resist the urge to go it alone. Hiring a professional real estate agent is likely to be your fastest way to a home sale at a great price. Be sure to tap all the expertise you can — online sites, a stager, photographer, real estate attorney, professional inspectors, etc.

      8. Being underfoot. Don’t be at home when your home is being shown. Take the kids and pets elsewhere, if possible. If you are working with an agent, allow that person to show your home alone. Buyers are more comfortable looking at homes when the homeowners are not around.

      9. Putting up your dukes. No one wins if you enter negotiations wearing mental boxing gloves. Approach negotiations in a positive frame of mind. After all, you and the buyer both want the same thing — a sale. Remain flexible.

      10. Letting a buyer’s offer languish. Essential final thought: One of the most important moves you can make is to reply immediately to an offer — even if it’s not the offer you were looking for. When buyers make an offer they are, right then, in the mood to buy, but moods can change quickly. If you can’t accept the offer outright, make your counteroffer quickly. You never know what buyers will accept until you ask!

      We Respect Your Time And Won’t Waste It On Filler We know you’re smart. (Buying SMART ESSENTIALS FOR SELLING YOUR HOME proves it … at least to us.) And we know your time is precious. You don’t need to spend it slogging through endless pages of information that’s irrelevant to getting your home sold.

      Side trips like deciding to sell, green home improvements (rather than cosmetic fix-ups), sample contracts and inspector reports, settlement documents explained line by line, renting rather than selling, estate sales, flipping houses and moving tips are not here. Why? Because you can leave these details to the professionals … or those subjects are better treated separately in unique SMART ESSENTIALS guides specifically for those niche readers.

      You don’t need to be a real estate expert. What you need is to sell your home for the best price in the shortest time. Yet you are smart enough to know you’ll need to work with several professionals during this complex — and sometimes stressful — milestone transaction. We’ll tell you how you can use the expertise of professionals to pull off a sale at the right price and within your timetable.

      What You’ll Take Away From This Guide What you will find in this SMART ESSENTIALS guide are concise, practical, insider strategies to do three things: > Get the highest possible price for your home. > Save time and sell on your timetable. > Avoid the costliest mistakes even smart home sellers make.

HOW THIS SMART ESSENTIALS GUIDE IS ORGANIZED

      There are seven essential strategies you must get right from the start, which shape the sections to this SMART ESSENTIALS guide:

      <> ROADMAP: Follow the essential roadmap and avoid the costliest selling mistakes.

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