Tips for Selling a Home for the First Time
Selling a home that you’ve lived in for any length of time can be difficult and scary, whether you’ve lived there for three years or three decades; but it doesn’t have to be if you know what to expect. It’s a completely different game than purchasing your home and comes with it’s own challenges to conquer. Here’s a short list of key points to help you get started when you sell a home for the first time.
Build a Plan
One of the number one tips from experts to help you sell your home is to have a goal and to set a plan that helps you achieve it. This is a plan that you and your family should sit down and create together before the home ever hits the market to ensure that everyone is on the same page. It’s important that you know where your family will go once the home sells, will you rent or buy? These are things that you should be factoring in from the very start to save yourself valuable time and money. Even if the sale moves quickly, finding your next home will take quite a bit of time so you’ll want to have some sense of that in order to make an effective plan of action.
Be Ready to Sell
One thing that most people tend to forget is that selling a home, no matter how long you’ve lived in it, is an emotional process and you need to be prepared. You need to be sure that you are completely ready to sell the home and be ready to accept the pricing and suggestions that your agent makes. Be realistic about price, condition and overall value of your home from the start, otherwise you run the risk of ruining the sale before the actual negotiations can even begin. You will only have one chance to make a first impression on buyers, the more realistic you are and the more willing you are to take your agents’ advice the more likely you are to have a successful sale.
Hire the Perfect Agent
While finding the right real estate brokerage is important it’s even more important to find the right agent for you and your property. They will become your direct connection to the brokerage and to potential buyers. Interview several agents and get reviews and recommendations from others before you decide which one to work with. You should also make sure that the agent is informed on current market trends and know about the market your home is in. Your agent will be your go to person for the rest of this process, they will become a very close contact of yours so you want to be sure they are a good fit up front, remember this can be a 3-6 month relationship or longer depending on your market, so it’s important that you are comfortable and trust and have faith that they are the right person for the job.
The bottom line is that if you go in with the right agent on your side, the right mindset, and a plan of action when you are ready to sell your home, you’re far more likely to be successful.