Selling your home can be a challenging, involved process that leaves you overwhelmed with bitter and sweet emotions. Your home holds a unique and special place in your heart because you have made many memories that will forever stay with you and that home. And letting go of so many memories can be a challenge in of itself. So, to help you navigate through the process and relieve some of the burden, we have created a list of steps you can take to make the home selling process easier.

Tips for Selling your Home

Do Your Research

Determine When to Sell

When preparing to sell your home, it is best to first determine if it is a good time to put it on the market. With market conditions always fluctuating, you want to be sure that they are in a good state to get the most benefit out of selling.

Research Comparable Houses and Median Home Prices

To get a better idea of what your home will sell for, research similar homes in your area and determine their value. You want to avoid pricing your house to high or too low and knowing the market value is a great step toward avoiding such a costly mistake.

Compare the Current Value to Amount Owed

Once you have taken the steps to determine what similar homes are selling for and the median sale prices in your area, it is time to see if selling your home will really benefit you. If the timing is not right, the market value of your home may very well be less than the remaining balance you owe. So do your homework, run the math, and avoid selling at a bad time.

So, say you’ve taken these steps and now are ready to in fact put your home on the market. Now what? Let’s take a look at the steps to take from there.

Prepare to Sell Your Home

Take Care of any Necessary Updates and Repairs

When putting your house on the market, the last thing you want to do is have potential homebuyers walk in to see leaky faucets, cracked windows, or other potential issues. So, it is recommended that you repair as many known issues as you can when seriously preparing to sell your home. Having inspections to uncover other potential issues such as mold and infestations can also avoid some major turnoffs for prospective buyers.

Make the Inside and Outside Look Appealing

There are several ways in which potential buyers will see your house such as flyers, websites, and of course in person visits. And you want to be sure that they get a good impression that will leave them wanting to buy.

Keep the outside looking good with a nice, mowed lawn, trimmed hedges, appealing landscaping, and only leave outdoor furniture where necessary. You want to avoid an unkept or cluttered yard, placing the excess lawn furniture in storage.

You will want to do similar with the inside of the home. Leaving some furniture to help sell the space, while putting the rest of the items in storage is recommended. You want to show furniture for scale and appeal, while avoiding the appearance of clutter.

Leaving the interior and exterior of the house partially set up and decorated will help potential buyers to imagine themselves living there.

Get Professional Photos of the Home

Once you have put in all the excellent work of doing repairs and making your house look appealing to buyers, have a professional photographer come out and capture captivating images. Having professional photos of your home will help capture the attention of potential buyers on platforms such as Zillow and increase the likelihood that they schedule a tour.

Now that you have taken steps to prep your house and capture some professional photos, it’s time to get the listings out there and start those open houses. So, let us go over the next steps you can take with your real estate agent.

Get the Realtor Involved

Open Houses and Tours

So, you have gotten your house all prepped, photos taken, and now are ready to start getting prospective buyers lined up. This is the time when you want to get your Real Estate agent involved with listing the property online, booking tours, scheduling open houses. Getting people to come physically look at the house helps give them the chance to really immerse themselves sin the idea of it being their home. All the prep and photos are merely steps toward enticing them to physically have a look, which is much more impactful of an experience than any photo can provide.

Leave the Rest to the Agent and a Loan Officer

Now is the time when you can leave the rest to the Real Estate agent and Loan Officer. The Realtor can now list the home online, share flyers, send out emails, and really push your house out there to the market. By partnering with a Loan Officer, the Realtor can then hand off the prospective buyers to somebody capable of accepting applications and getting the home buying process started.

Many of the Loan Officers here at Big Valley Mortgage have developed strong relationships with trusted Realtors just for this purpose and work together with their real estate partners to match clients to their dream homes.

Ways to Buy a New Home When Selling Another

Buy Before You Sell

If you buy your next home before selling, it can help make the buying process much more relaxed. With less urgency to get moved in, you won’t have to feel as rushed as if you were to buy after selling your current home. You’ll also have a place to settle into before selling your home, avoiding the need to rent a storage unit or be stuck in limbo. It also helps avoid issues if a deal falls through and you don’t get a home as quickly as you’d hoped.

However, there are also some negative aspects to buying your new home before selling your current one. With a more relaxed buying process, comes the potential of a more rushed selling process which can cause you to possibly accept a lower offer on your former home than if you’d sold it first. You could also wind up stuck with your former home for longer than you expected, which can leave you with paying two sets of taxes and possibly even having to rent the house out until it sells. You may also find it harder to put a good-sized down payment on your new home or even get qualified while still stuck with the other house in your possession.

Sell Before You Buy

If you sell your home before buying another, you avoid having to pay on two mortgages at the same time, getting stuck trying to sell longer than you anticipated, and reduce your chances being denied when applying for a new loan. Another benefit of selling your home before purchasing another is that it will provide you with more money to apply to your down payment.

The negative aspects that come with this option are of course that you will need to find a temporary place to stay between homes, will need to move multiple times, may wind up needing to pay for storage, and you could potentially make a poor buying decision due to feeling rushed.

So whichever of these options you go with, be sure to really think it through, weight out your options, and do your homework. Not every situation is the same and you will want to make sure to choose the option that is best for you.

Conclusion

Understanding the methods and strategies of selling a home can lead to better decision-making. Many homeowners make mistakes when they are unfamiliar with the proper steps to follow. By applying the tips above, sellers can navigate the process more smoothly and successfully sell their homes.

For those seeking guidance, Big Valley Mortgage, a trusted mortgage company in Roseville, CA, can connect clients with experienced loan officers and real estate agents who are ready to provide expert support throughout the home-selling journey.

*The views, articles, postings, and information listed at this website are personal and do not necessarily represent the opinion or the position of Big Valley Mortgage.*