Your Ultimate Home Seller’s Guide to Selling a Property in Ontario
Selling your home in Ontario, CA for top dollar doesn’t sound so simple. After all, it all depends on how much work you exert before putting it on the market. To ensure you have all the cards to make that happen, you need to follow certain steps to sell your home fast and for the best price.
Before you begin to learn those steps, reflect on these quick statistics:
- 90% of home sellers worked with a real estate agent to sell their homes (NAR)
- Homes with drone photography sell faster by 68% than those who don’t (The Close).
- The median number of days on the market is 27.5 before an offer is accepted (Redfin).
The 10 Home Seller’s Guide
First-time home sellers may feel overly overwhelmed by their decision. However, you don’t have to take it all in. You can ask for help, and break down things into small steps at a time. This seller’s guide is designed to help you achieve your home selling goal by developing clear and strategic plans.
1. Decide When to Sell Your Home
Plan for a target date to sell your home. It’s not going to be just any time you feel ready. Having a clear deadline helps you work harder on fixing and preparing your home.
If there’s an important but often overlooked question, it should be, “When is the best time to sell my home?”
Month and Year
All neighborhoods have a particular time when real estate is at its peak – constant home buying and selling. There are also those times when real estate buying and selling is almost nowhere to be found. Before going to the next step, it’s best if you already know the situation in your neighborhood. However, if you’re not keen on that, you can talk to a realtor.
Remember, a month and a year are essential because you also need to prepare other things like when to stage your home, move out, and target extension in case it doesn’t sell as fast as expected.
The current state of the real estate in your neighborhood.
Home prices tend to surge and drop at a particular time of the year.
Take a look at the competition in your neighborhood. Study the average home selling price, the days it takes to sell, the perks and incentives offered by your competitors, and the taxes and expenses.
Buyers want to feel like they won after buying your home. Furthermore, if you’re knowledgeable about your current market, you can easily ace your competitors in selling your home.
Competition in a similar neighborhood
Sometimes, it’s not enough to consider your neighborhood only when deciding when to sell your home. If you want to ensure you’re in the best time of the year to proceed with your plan, you need to look at the real estate market in a similar neighborhood. Assess the data you gathered and set the date.
2. Identify The Parts that Need Fixing
The next thing on the list is to study and identify home defects that need some fixing. A leaky faucet or loose tiles can impact the overall quality of your home. So, it’s best to look around, list them out, and replace them as soon as possible before selling them on the market. Knobs and small fixtures don’t cost too much but could potentially raise the home’s overall price.
3. Look for Trusted Real Estate Agents
Most home sellers don’t have much time to prepare everything. That’s why having a real estate agent on your side could streamline the selling process. On top of that, you can also benefit from a trusted professional opinion in your best interest.
Here are some of the things your real estate agent can help you with when selling your home:
- They can negotiate with potential buyers and their agents in your favor.
- They can help you prepare and fill out the paperwork.
- If you try to sell your home on your own, you may not be listed in the MLS, and buyers’ agents may not know your property.
- A realtor is knowledgeable about your current real estate market.
Selling your home with a trusted realtor on your side reduces its time on the market and may even sell for top dollar.
4. Strategizing on Your Plan
After talking to your trusted real estate agent, it’s time to strategize and develop selling plans. This step will allow you to prepare for the worst by developing contingency plans. Moreover, strategizing creates a solid proposition in terms of price negotiations with the buyers. Therefore achieving your goal in the most efficient way.
In strategizing your plan, you’ll need to take a look at the following:
Price
Set your price so that you will not feel at a loss after the buyer’s plea to negotiate, and other expenses deducted, such as your agent’s commission, marketing budget, and legal fees incurred in selling your home.
You may set a threshold below which price negotiations cannot affect the home’s final selling price. For instance, if your target proceeds for selling your home is $250,000, then you should set the price at around $280,000 to not affect your final price from the negotiations and fees.
If you need help regarding this step, talking to a trusted realtor could be a sensible move to make.
Negotiations and Dealings
You could pull off the best plan out there but will fail in the negotiation step. Therefore, the best thing to do is talk with your realtor about what is open for negotiations and what is not. Moreover, if you’re pretty confident in not offering negotiations, a realtor could explain your side to the potential buyers about the matter.
Overall fees and expenses
Keep your home improvement expenses as low as possible. You could make greater profit returns when the overall fees and costs don’t eat up the home’s proceeds.
5. Pricing Your Home “Right”
This step is a bit crucial for home sellers. You could mess it up if you price your home too low, or it will stay on the market for too long if you do otherwise. Whichever way, you wouldn’t want it to happen.
Therefore the key to effectively pricing your home is backed by the following:
- Home appraiser’s estimate
- Your real estate market assessment.
- Your realtor’s professional opinion;
- And lastly, your established threshold price.
6. Staging Your Home
Here comes the first step in preparing your home for the potential buyers to see. At this point, getting a professional photographer can help sell your home more quickly and for a better price.
Curb appeals, such as the gate, front lawn, and the overall welcoming view of your home, must be appealing enough to entice potential buyers. It doesn’t take much effort to cut weeds, arrange things, and make everything look good.
7. Marketing Your Home
When you are in agreement with your trusted realtor, marketing your home will not be a burden to you. Your realtor can simply list it on their website and other real estate platforms, such as Zillow or Redfin. They can also talk to their fellow realtors, email potential buyers, and even run ads.
8. Showings
After all the marketing is done for your home to the potential buyers, it’s time for your realtor to organize a showing for the select interested buyers.
During the showings, it’s necessary to leave your home and let your real estate agent do the tour and sales talk. Don’t forget to get rid of your personal items and make everything spotless before your agent schedules the home showing.
9. Offers and Negotiations
After your home is presented to interested buyers, offers and negotiations follow suit. This is where the bidding wars happen, and your realtor should have already briefed you about what to expect. However, if you and your realtor have a clear strategy planned out, dealing with this step would not be much more difficult.
10. Closing Day
Closing the deal is the end goal for everyone. This is where the signing of documents happens, and the property is turned over to the new homeowner. Aside from that, you will also need to inform your utility companies about your move and cancel your home insurance.
The Bottom Line
Home selling doesn’t need to be complicated. You can always have a trusted realtor on your side to sell your home faster and for a better price. The real estate market can be tricky to navigate for those who aren’t prepared. So, having a well-established guide and plans can help a lot.
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