How To Ensure a Successful Home Sale

How do you know if you’re hiring the right agent to sell your home? I’ve got a few things you should consider when choosing your Realtor.

Buying a home? Click here to perform a full home search

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As I’ve mentioned in previous videos, there are a lot of things that they don’t teach in real estate school. Interviewing two or three Realtors for the job of selling your house is critical to the success of the sale.

Even in a market as hot as this one, not all houses sell or sell at their asking price. Hiring a competent agent is your best strategy. When interviewing agents, there are a few things you should look out for.

Make sure the sure the agent doesn’t just come prepared with information from your neighborhood, but also has a wider understanding the market in your area. Do they have knowledge of the macro- and micro-markets and see the trends that are happening? Do they know the absorption rate? Anyone can compile information on listings and what’s sold and what hasn’t. Make sure that they can interpret that data.

Being a listing agent is different from being a buyer’s agent.

Make sure the agent that you choose is marketing and tech-savvy. You want them to be able to understand how to market your home across social media platforms and get it in front of the right buyers and demographics. They should be utilizing every resource that they have available to them both on and offline in order to market your house to worldwide prospective buyers.

What is their track record? What have they sold in the last three, six, and nine months? You need to make sure that the agents you interview can show you the statistics of the homes they’ve listed, not just the buyers they’ve worked with. What is the number of days that those homes spent on market? What was their list-to-sales price ratio?

Being a listing agent is different from being a buyer’s agent. The skills required for each role are different, and be sure to ask the tough questions of the Realtors you’re interviewing to determine that they have the knowledge and experience to sell your home quickly and for top dollar.

If you have any other questions or you’re thinking of selling, please give me a call. I would consider it a privilege to be interviewed by you to sell your home. I look forward to speaking with you.

Do You Know the Answers to These Common Appraisal Questions?

Today I’m covering some of the most commonly asked questions I hear about the appraisal process.

Buying a home? Click here to perform a full home search

Selling a home? Click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation

Appraisals are a subject about which people often have many questions. Today, I’ll be discussing three of these common questions.

First of all, what does the appraiser look for? The appraiser first and foremost will be looking for capital improvements to the home. Additionally, the appraiser will consider how a given house compares to other comparable properties of similar size, age, and location.

The radius within which the appraiser will look is usually about a quarter of a mile to a mile, but can vary depending on the average distance between homes in your area.

Granite countertops, upgraded appliances, upgraded bathrooms, improved additions, and finished lower levels are all things that an appraiser will look for.

However, there are a few things that don’t truly matter to an appraiser. Things like window treatments, a new furnace, or a new roof won’t make a difference. These things will be more important to buyers than they will be to an appraiser.

An appraisal is never public knowledge.

The second question is: “What happens if my home doesn’t appraise?” Well if the buyer has an appraisal rider in the contract, they have the right to negotiate with you on the price. Finding a happy medium will be key here. But, if an agreeable solution cannot be reached, the deal will be terminated.

In that case, we get to our third question: “Who gets to see that appraisal?” An appraisal is never public knowledge. The only people who will get to see it will be the buyer and their lender. Technically, you could put your home back on the market without anyone else knowing that it didn’t appraise.

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

How Our Buyers Gain Leverage While Also Selling

Buying and selling at the same time can be tricky. Here’s one way we help make the process easier for our clients.

Buying a home? Click here to perform a full home search

Selling a home? Click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation

If you plan on selling your home and buying a new one, do you have a “plan B” in place for when your home sells in the next 30 to 45 days? This is a question I recently asked a client of mine who is relocating to Chicago and needed to sell their St. Louis home. 

I told them that if I listed their house and it sold quickly, they would need a place to go even if they hadn’t found their new home yet. They didn’t have an answer, so I laid out some steps for them.

The first thing I told them to do was get a home equity line of credit. On a home equity line of credit, you can’t have your current home on the market but you can take roughly 80% of its value and use it for the purchase of a new home. That gave my client leverage with the seller in Chicago because they were basically a cash buyer with no financing or sale contingencies.

It’s a win-win situation for them because it takes the pressure off of them having to sell their house in St. Louis right away. Now, my client will be able to buy their new house in Chicago and wait for the right offer to come along in St. Louis. There won’t be pressure to take the first offer that comes along like there would have been if they decided to sell before buying a new home. This is just one example of how we can find a solution for you no matter what your real estate goals are.

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It was a win-win situation for this client.

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I can help you out with buying and selling homes no matter your situation. If you have any questions for me at all, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.