The Beginner’s Guide to Selling a Home

A lot of steps go into selling a home even before it's time to put it on the market. Fixing it up, staging it, decluttering, packing, and performing any deferred maintenance. And now? It’s time. After fixing up the home in preparation, it’s finally ready to go up on the market. But just how does anyone do that? Here are the basic steps to sell any home.

Hire a Real Estate Agent

A real estate agent is a homeowner’s best friend when it comes to selling a home. They’ll be with the homeowner every step of the way and do their best to help the home sell in a timely manner and for an appropriate sum of money. The agent will be paid when your Durango home sells, at which time they will take a percentage of what the home sells for. 

Get a Professional Appraisal

While real estate agents are skilled, it’s recommended that homeowners also get a professional appraisal from a certified appraiser to get the most accurate value possible. An appraiser is a neutral third-party in the home-selling process who gets paid a set amount regardless of how much the home sells for, so they can’t be influenced to inflate a home’s value for personal gain. 

The appraiser will look for everything in the home from water stains to bug infestations, and some will even take into account the neighborhood and location of the home. 

Decide on a Price

In addition to the professional appraisal and the real estate’s advice, homeowners can also use websites like Zillow to look at the estimated value of other similar homes in the neighborhood to help come up with an appropriate price. 

If area’s housing market is hot, the agent may recommend selling for more than the estimated appraisal. But if the market is slow, they may recommend selling lower to help the home sell faster. Ultimately, the agent can only advise, but it’s the homeowner who must decide the official asking price for the home. 

Host an Open House

An open house can be an excellent way to get a lot of buyers to come see the home in a short amount of time. Because it’s an open house, anyone can come to check it out regardless of if they’re accompanied by an agent or not, so it’s far more accessible than setting up an appointment to view the home. Plus, many home buyers love open houses because it allows them to pop in, see the house, and move along at their own pace. Hosting an open house can be a good strategy to help the home sell faster because of all the extra foot traffic. 

Receive and Accept an Offer

Once a buyer has submitted an official offer, it goes to the real estate agent, who will then notify the seller. From here there are three options: accept it, reject it, or make a counteroffer. Making a counteroffer can be a good choice when the buyer’s offer was just a hair too low, as it can open a dialogue for the buyer and seller to come to an agreement on an acceptable price.

Once the seller has received an offer they want to accept, their agent will prepare the paperwork for both the seller and buyer to sign.

Finalize the Sale

Finally, it’s time for closing. The seller, buyer, and their agents will all meet together to go over the paperwork one last time before signing on all the dotted lines. After that, the house keys get passed to the home’s new owner, and the seller gets any money they earned from the sale. After that, the home is officially sold.

Selling a home can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t actually have to be one. With the help of a skilled real estate agent and some effort, any home can see a home go from “for sale” to “sold.”