Video Summary
What advice would you give when selling a home? Well, if you’re thinking about selling your home, I suggest first that you start thinking about where you’re going to go, so that you don’t sell your home, and it may sell quickly in this market, and have no place to go. So, you need to do some planning and think about where you’re going to be going.
The next thing I suggest you do, is that you contact three realtors, and ask each of them to come out and view your home, and provide you with a comparative market analysis. Tell each one of them that you’re presently interviewing realtors as far as deciding on whom to list it with and for how much, and see if they would be interested in coming out and providing you with a CMA, giving you some idea which will provide the marketing … what price they believe they can sell the house at. And also any suggestions they might have as far as what you can do to improve the sale, or the eye appeal, as far as that’s concerned, as far as the home’s concerned.
So once you have interviewed all three of them, you need to have some comfort as to which one you feel the most comfortable with. And the one that necessarily says that they would list it for the highest amount, you want to try and look at that to see if all three CMA’s are realistic, or how broad of a range they are, to come up with some kind of median price. You need to ask them that you would like to have the property sold, say, in two month period, in a 60 day period that you would have a contract.
So you also need to be prepared, particularly if you do have a realtor, to fill out an information sheet about the home, and list any matters that you’ve had done to the house. Particularly if it’s a repaired sinkhole home, be sure you have the engineers report if it’s available. And disclose whatever there may have been any problems, and that that’s an obligation you have as far as a seller.
Once you decide upon the realtor, you need to try and keep your listing agreement down to six months. Also, ask them about if you get unhappy with their services, whether or not you would have a right to terminate the contract, and what you would have to pay them. And take out the provision, or the listing agreement, where they have the discretion of either allowing you in our out of the contract, and don’t sign it for too long of a … six months is usually the time period for a listing agreement. So if things aren’t working out, well then you’re in a position to switch to a different realtor.
Also, you need to look at what their percentage is, whether it’s … usually it runs about 6%, and ask how much they’re going to provide for the selling realtor, since they’re the listing realtor. Whether it’s gonna be a even split, a three and three, or whether they give the [inaudible 00:03:48] percentage, and just how they go about that. You also need to ask each one of them whether or not they’re gonna charge you a transaction fee, as far as your realtor’s concerned.
So that’s, also how they’re gonna go about marketing, whether they’re gonna put it in multiple listing, what kind of advertisements they’re gonna do. So these are all questions that you might wanna write down so you have each realtor be ready to address these, or when you ask them to come out whether they’d be agreeable to giving you answers to these questions. And then, once you review all of that, and your comfort level, well then select your realtor so that you could then go about putting your house on the market, and hopefully having it sold within about a 60 day period. Also having decided, you know where you’re gonna be going, whether or not you’re moving out of state, or whether you already have a place, or just what you need to do.
Whenever you do receive a contract for the sale of the property, tell your realtor that you’d like to have my office handle the title insurance. We charge pretty much the same amount as what any other title company would do, and we would be at the closing table for you. One of the things, and if you would like for me to review the contract, well I would do that. If you wanna engage my services to look at the contract and comment on it prior to your signing it, the attorney fees on that run about $250 to $500.
One of the things that you will see in most contracts, which I don’t know that there’s much you can do about it is, usually there’s a very small deposit. So, the buyer puts down a $1,000 deposit, or $2,000 or $3,000, even it’s a cash deal. So whenever the closing comes about, and let’s say the buyer just decides they don’t wanna to go through with the deal, the downside of this is that they can walk away and the most that you’re gonna be able to get is the amount of the deposit. So if it’s merely a $1,000, particularly if you have moved out or whatever you’ve done, then you’ve got a real problem, in that you have … the transaction’s gone through.
If possible, try and negotiate a little higher purchase price, or if you are concerned, let’s say it’s a 100% financing, or 97% financing, I suggest that you put in the contract that the buyer will request the lender to order an appraisal right away, to see if the property will appraise so that they can get their financing, and so it doesn’t fall through at the last minute, and they get their deposit back and you still own your home. But make arrangements to possibly remain in the property for a short period of time after closing, so that you haven’t moved out, and then the deal falls through at the last minute. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to know that you’ve got a deal until it actually closes and you put the money in the bank, so there’s just a few things that you can look at to do.
So, those are just a few things to think about whenever you’re getting ready to sell the house, and [inaudible 00:07:36] you’d like some advice, or like for me to represent you, I’ll be pleased to. If you sell the property on your own, I can prepare the contract and take care of the closing. I am a title agent, and I’ll write the title insurance and close the transaction. So if you have any questions about selling your home, give me a call, it’s 727-847-2288.