Selling Your Metro Atlanta Area Home?

Hiring a Realtor

Selling a home is an important decision and hiring the Realtor is the first and most important step in the process. Interviewing Realtors and asking the right questions will help in determining which Realtor to hire. Some basic questions will help in the decision-making process.

Questions to ask a Realtor

How long have you been in real estate?
Are you a full or part-time realtor?
Do you have a team?
Do you have a marketing plan for my home?
How is your communication with your clients?
How and what do you use to price a home for sale?

Watch Hiring a Realtor to help you sell your home

Pricing a Home

As a seller, you want to get as much for your home as you can. I understand that and want that for you as well. When determining market value (selling price), some factors affect the value and some factors don’t.

Factors that affect value:

Supply & Demand
Economic Conditions
Asking & Selling Prices of Competing Homes
Your Home’s Conditions
Buyer’s Perception of Your Home

Factors that do not affect value

The Price the Seller Paid for the House
The Seller’s Expected Net Proceeds
The Amount Spent on Net Improvements

How to determine the market value

The difference between upgrades and maintenance in a home

Marketing Plan – What must be in the marketing plan to sell your home

Besides pricing, marketing is essential to selling your home. The Realtor you hire should have an aggressive marketing plan that maximizes the exposure, of your home, to potential buyers and Realtors of potential buyers. A good marketing plan should include at least these four things.

Lead generating website/tools – Custom website that is specifically designed to generate leads – Through pay-per-click campaigns, blogs, newsletters, community pages, etc. A good example is my website at www.totalatlantagroup.com.
Social media campaign – A good Realtor will have a solid social media plan. That would include Twitter, Facebook, google+, Youtube, etc. Take a look at mine as an example – Chad Schernikau - Total Atlanta Group
24-hour automated number – to capture potential buyers that are interested in your home.
Marketing Coordinator – A good marketing coordinator to help market your home.

These four these things should be in the marketing plan of any Realtor. A Realtor needs to stay up-to-date on the most current marketing techniques used in real estate.

For more information or explanation about marketing watch my video below.

Four things a Realtor should be doing to sell your home

See what we do to sell homes

Preparing your home for sale

A magical metamorphosis occurs the moment you decide to sell your property. The “home” you
love so dearly turns into a “house”. This shift in vocabulary is part of letting go, i.e., the emotional detachment process all sellers experience sooner or later. Home is where your heart is. Houses, on the other hand, are commodities sold on the open market. Focus on the three Cs:

Clean it up
Clear the clutter
Make cosmetic improvements.

You’re getting ready to sell a house. Most people don’t see their houses after they have lived there for a while. They don’t notice the effects of gradual physical deterioration and junk accumulation. Little stuff to them. Not so little stuff to a buyer! If you make the right improvements when preparing your house to sell, you increase the odds of selling it quickly for top dollar. If, conversely, you do nothing, or if you make the wrong changes to your property, you waste the time and money you spent, prolong the sale, and probably reduce the ultimate sale price. Things to do to maximize your home value:

Creating curb appeal – add some flowers, keep the yard mowed, new pine straw, get rid of weeds, and reseed areas of the yard that are dead
Spruce up the exterior of the home – painting the trim, replace rotten wood, power wash the house and driveway, repair any roof issues
Interior – de-clutter the space – clear items out of closets, remove knickknacks, touch up paint walls, professionally clean the carpet, have a good deep cleaning of your home before you sell
Staging – Staging a house goes way beyond your efforts to make it look neat, clean, and well cared for. Just as stagehands set the stage for Broadway productions, you can stage your house to create a production designed to wow prospective purchasers. Change your drapes, hang art on the walls, and move furniture around to create a look of a bigger space – you might need to move furniture out.

For a complete list of ideas and to get your home ready to sell – click on the links below

How to get your home ready to sell

Ideas to prepare your home for sale

You get an offer – Negotiating

Always remember this is a business transaction. It can be hard because it is your home that you have lived in for a long time. When you get an offer, everything is negotiable such as:

Price
Closing costs
Closing date
Earnest money
Closing attorney
Due diligence
Special Stipulations – these are things like a home warranty, termite letter, etc

The first offer a buyer submits will have a lot of things that a buyer will ask for. You can expect a lower price, seller paid closing costs, and some special stipulations. Do not take it personally, it is business. Evaluate the offer and talk with your Realtor. Counter with price and terms that you feel are fair.

Repairs

Repairs are always an issue, most buyers feel they should have a majority of the repairs completed by the seller. This is not the case. The idea behind repairs is that everything is negotiable. This means that a good buyers’ agent will have the buyers focus on the major items in a house. This would include:

Roofing system (roof, gutters, downspouts)
Electrical
Plumbing
HVAC
Water heater
Foundation

These items are important in the overall structure and functionality of the home. So when a repair amendment is presented to you, don’t get frustrated. Work through each repair item on your list and decide if you want to fix it or not.

Learn more about negotiating repairs

Appraisal

If the buyer is getting financing, the bank will complete an appraisal. The appraisal is done to determine the value of the house. If the appraisal comes in at the purchase price or higher, everything is ok. If it comes in lower, the seller has three options.

Reduce the price to the current appraised value
Make the buyer pay the difference
Take the property off the market

It is always the seller’s choice of what to do. Most buyers will walk away from a deal if they have to pay more money than the house is worth.

Closing Day

The closing for a seller is much easier than a buyer. The seller will only sign a few documents such as the settlement statement and the deed. When a seller comes to closing, they have to make sure that they have done all contractual and agreed upon items in the contract. These can include:

Home warranty
Complete all repairs and provide receipts
Termite inspection or bond
Any additional items that were in the special stipulations of the contract

A seller will also need to bring the keys, garage door openers, any manuals, and a picture ID.

Total Atlanta Group is client and customer service focused, not benefit-driven. If you are interested in selling your home, we invite you to meet us today.