What I Wish Everyone Knew About Selling Homes in the Bay Area
Selling homes is something that should come with a great deal of passion and excitement, yet at the same time, be devoid of heel-clicking and emotion-based decisions. If your agent jumps in the air and sings “Over the Rainbow” every time a potential buyer makes an offer, you may want to reconsider the agency with which you have signed on. That said, here are a number of useful guidelines for what I, as a professional Realtor®, wish everyone knew about selling homes.
Effective Agents Avoid Emotional Sales.
The first time you sell your home, it would be weird if you did not have some personal emotions tied up in the process. It is your home.
Whether you lived there twenty years or twenty days, you have more than a financial investment in the walks, ceiling and floors. Some of what you like to think of as Yourself has been melded into the fabric of the foundation and so when a potential buyer makes what you might consider a low offer, you personally might become offended. But that is not a characteristic you would want from your own agent. A Realtor® can follow up without sounding lame or desperate or personally affronted. Sales based on emotion always favor the other guy and the other guy is not you.
For sale by owner can be a disaster when selling homes
If you have never sold a home before, you might think you are being smart by trying to save the 5-6% agent commission and selling the home yourself. But a good agent–and most of them are quite good–will have your best interests at heart. The agent will work with you to establish a fair and competitive price for your home. They can also save you the tremendous aggravation of having to deal with the so-called “tire kickers,” the people who want to drain all your time and energy but who have absolutely no intention whatsoever of buying your home and couldn’t get qualified to do so even if they were serious. A Realtor® is a client advocate who stays abreast of changing market dynamics, while remaining an unbiased voice of reason.
Curb Appeal Has Real Value
Curb appeal is what gives homebuyers their first impression of a property before they even step inside. The aesthetic look of a home’s exterior can tell what someone can expect to find on the other side of the front door. Curb appeal is, as the name suggests, the level of attractiveness a potential buyer feels for the property while viewing it from the street (https://bit.ly/3hUs6MJ ). Since 90 percent of all home-searches begin on the internet, pictures are crucial and in order to be able to take pictures that will not be contradicted when the buyer parks across the street to silently evaluate, the seller ought to invest time and (yes) money in establishing beauty with the landscaping, grass, trees, roof, doors, paint job and anything else that can be observed from the road.
If you both walk away happy with what you’ve gained from the deal, then that’s a win-win! Your Realtor® knows how to take issues and focus on solutions instead of turning everything into an adversarial crisis.
The Home’s Inside Matters, Too!
My Dad used to say that if you want to get a great haircut from a new barber, your hair needs to look good going in the door. Why? Because the new barber will judge your expectations based on how you look when you need his or her services.
This concept applies to home buying/selling as well. If you want to motivate your agent to do a great job for you, you need to demonstrate to that person that you too are serious. And if you have not cleaned the inside of your home since 1979, your Realtor® is going to be nonplussed.
If you can afford professional help in this area, well, great! But on the whole, cleaning and straightening your home is usually the easiest and least expensive part of the process. Clean the counters, tables, windowsills and any other visible areas. After all, you want the potential buyers to envision themselves (rather than your stuff, dirt included) in your home.
Please don’t ignore the flaws when selling homes
Think your buyer won’t notice that roof leak? How about the bug problem? Guess again. If your buyers are smart, they’ll likely get a home inspection after you accept their offer. And if a major problem with your house comes up during the inspection, it could delay your closing date or even terminate the deal altogether. And even if the prospects don’t mention what they observe, they will likely interpret the fact that you did not disclose the flaws as something else: a flaw in your personal character. All things being equal, people prefer to buy from folks they perceive as honest.
Besides, the law in most states requires you to reveal known problems of your home’s roof, walls, foundation, basement, plumbing, heating and electrical systems, as well as past pest problems and the presence of hazardous materials such as radon, lead paint and asbestos. Your state may even require you to fill out a standard disclosure form. So do the right thing in the first place and take care of these problems prior to the sale. If you simply cannot afford to affect these repairs, you owe to everyone involved to make the needs known.
What is the Right Price for Your Home?
A Comparative Market Analysis tells everyone involved an approximate value of a home based on several factors, including (and often primarily) the price of recently sold, similar properties in the immediate area.
This report will be performed by your agent and will include the address of your property and three to five comparable homes, a description of each property, the square feet, sale price of each comparable, price per square foot of each comparable, and fair market value of your property.
Fair Market Value (FMV) refers to the price that your home would sell for under normal market conditions. For example, if the fair market price of a home is $200,000 but the home is in an up-and-coming neighborhood, the market value may be closer to $225,000 due to many people wanting to live there. In other words, the market can drive the value higher than that FMV.
These are only some of the more urgent matters that I wish everyone knew when it comes to the value of his or her or their Realtor®. For more information on this subject, please feel free to reach out.