HOME SELLING 101

1. Interview agents---It’s always a good idea to interview several to see which one you “click” with and who you feel comfortable with selling your biggest investment.
   Ask questions such as: Where do you advertise? Who pays for the advertising? If someone were to call you off the sign in my yard, how quickly could you respond to their questions? What is your marketing plan and can I have a copy in writing?
2. Hire the agent who you feel will do the best job selling your home. You will fill out listing paperwork as well as the necessary disclosures for your home.
3. I, your agent, will enter your home in the local MLS, and begin to market your home.
4. Other agents will start calling you (or I will) to set up showing appointments.
5. Talk to me about any feedback I receive from the showing agents.
   
   Depending on the market, it might take a short time or a longer time to sell your home. I should keep in fairly close contact with you as far as how many showings you’ve had, what’s going on with the market, if there’s something about your home that might need to change to bring in more buyers, etc.
   
   
6. Once an offer has been written, I will contact you to set up an appointment to sit down with you and review it. You will have three options: accept it, counter it, or reject it.
7. Once an offer has been ‘signed around’ by all parties, the buyer’s agent will fax it to the title company that has been chosen, and the title process begins.
8. The buyer will order the inspection and an appointment will be set up with you.
9. The title will be researched to make sure that there aren’t any liens or such against the property.
10. Escrow officer will contact you regarding your payoff.
11. As long as everything looks good, you will be contacted by the escrow officer to set up a time to come to their office and sign paperwork signing your home over.
12. The house is usually recorded the day after the buyer signs, and by 9 pm on the day of recording, the home officially belongs to the buyer.
13. The closing process—from the time an offer is mutually accepted until closing—will generally be about a month. Sometimes more, occasionally less.
    

This is the home selling process in a nutshell. From the time of listing your home to the time of selling could be as little as a month, or as long as 6 months.

If you want more information from me on what I offer a seller, please let me know. If you want information on selling a home with an agent vs. selling on your own, give me a call. I have a lot of information that could help you make a decision.