| Achieving your goals when selling your home all starts with one thing:
Knowledge!
Getting the Knowledge
You see, when you are armed with the proper information, all of the complicated pieces of the home selling puzzle will fall into place. An organized, planned approach to selling your home will eliminate the guesswork, insure that you avoid the costly pitfalls, and enjoy a successful, low stress transaction. Learning the true inside story of how the real estate sales industry works may surprise you! (NOT the way it used to work 10 or 20 years ago, but how it is today!) Most real estate agents try to keep a lot of this information secret, only giving out bits and pieces where they have to. Many don’t even know it themselves! It’s time to reveal the full truth about selling your home! This report will cover the "Real Story" about selling your home. You need to know what to expect, so you can make the right decisions and avoid the common mistakes that can cost you thousands of dollars and foul up all of your plans.
Home is Where the Heart Is! For most people, their home is their biggest financial asset. But it is often much more. It is HOME!
It’s where family gathers for holidays.
It’s backyard barbecues.
It’s where your child first rode down the driveway without training wheels.
It’s where you eat, where you sleep, it’s where you LIVE!
It’s memories, good and bad. Yes, most people get mighty emotional about their homes. The thought of selling your home may bring on deep feelings of sadness, joy, fear, uncertainty, and excitement - all at the same time! This brings us to the first thing you’re going to have to do in order to successfully sell your home: Realize that selling your home is a dollars and cents business transaction, and you need to put your emotional attachments to your home aside.
This is sometimes easier said than done. Just try to keep in mind that potential buyers are not looking to buy your home, they want a house that they can make into their home!
You need to understand that the buyer is not interested in nor affected by your own personal memories of your home. It’s natural to feel like your home is worth more than others just because it’s yours, but DON’T FALL INTO THIS TRAP. It will affect your judgment and cause you to make poor decisions… decisions that may end up costing you plenty!
Overwhelmed by Choices?
One thing you can be sure of when you decide to sell your home is that you will be confronted with Lots Of Choices!
From the moment the thought of selling first enters your mind, the choices, decisions, and uncertainties just keep coming at you. Is selling the right thing for us to do?
Is now a good time to sell?
How will it affect the family?
Can we afford a new home?
Will we qualify for a new loan?
How much should we ask for the house?
How much will we put in our pocket at closing?
Should we remodel the house first?
What if it doesn’t sell? All of these thoughts can build up and become a bit overwhelming! One of the first choices is whether to sell your home yourself, or hire a real estate agent to assist you. Which way to go will depend on your personal situation and goals. The good news is that the information in this report will be useful to you regardless of which you way you choose to go.
You Need to Hear the facts!
Little Mistakes Cost Alot!
The biggest mistakes that sellers make when selling their home all stem from a few general errors:
· Failure to understand market conditions and pricing.
· Using outdated advertising and marketing that does NOT generate responses.
· Attempting to sell the home themselves without an agent when they are not prepared to do the job.
· Hiring the wrong real estate agent.
· Failure to understand how both the home buying and home selling processes work.
The Truth About Advertising!
The sad truth is that 99% of all advertising does not motivate the public to take action. Yes, it’s true. Why is this? Because 99% of all people do not understand the basic principles of response generating advertising! Very few real estate agents know, how to create a call to action ad, because they have never learned. The problem is that most advertising is "image" advertising. This is advertising that simply shows fancy pictures and a company’s logo or slogan. It offers no benefit to the prospect! No reason for them to take action.
NEVER FORGET: Buyers only care about your home if it will fill their needs and benefit them!! This means that your advertisements need to show to the public how THEY WILL BENEFIT from your Home. How will their life be better? How can they make or save money, have more status, be safer, feel better, etc.? Typical real estate advertising does not do this. It is the same old boring stuff. It all blends in to a sea of ads, and none of them grab any attention. To be effective, advertisements need to strike at people’s emotions! To really get people to respond, you need to arouse their curiosity and greed. Great advertising focuses on the potential customer. A good Real Estate Agent understands this, and tries to determine who his most likely buyer is, so that he/she can “target market” your home. If you are selling your home on your own, you need to assume this role and realize the importance of this. Your ads need to stimulate interest and curiosity, and cause the reader to want to call for more information. The key is to always stress BENEFITS, not just features. The difference between the two may not be clear to you, so here are a couple examples.
FEATURE: New high efficiency heating/cooling unit
BENEFIT: Lower utility bills, comfort
FEATURE: State of the art security system
BENEFIT: Safety, peace of mind
FEATURE: 3 Bathrooms
BENEFIT: Privacy
Benefits answer the first question always on everyone’s mind:
What’s in it for me?
A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH
The key to avoiding the problems and stress that plague many home sellers is to have a system for handling all of the details. When you have a step-by-step system that you can sit down and implement, one step at a time, the entire task of selling your home becomes much clearer and more manageable.
To put the odds of achieving your goals strongly in your favour, you need to know and understand the six-step home selling process. This process is not based on some theory out of a textbook. It has been tested and proven over many years and thousands of successful transactions.
Step 1 - Understanding Market Conditions And Pricing Your Home
Step 2 - Calculating Your Bottom Line Step 3 - Preparing Your Home For Sale Step 4 - Marketing And Showing Your Home Step 5 - Negotiation And Contract-The Most important aspect of a sales contract. Step 6 - Closing And Moving
Taking the time to learn and going one step at a time will pay off big in the end when you achieve your goal - a fast, smooth sale at top dollar!
SO WHERE DO YOU START??
The first step is also the most important. The one critical error that causes more sellers to foul up their sale and lose thousands of dollars is failing to understand market conditions. You need to know exactly what is going on in your real estate market. Not just your neighborhood, either… your whole area. Research available, under contract, and closed sales to determine vital statistics of your area such as:
· Average list price
· Average sales price
· Percentage of listed homes that actually sell
· List to sales price ratio
· Average days on market.
What is happening in your area? Are home sales brisk, or a bit on the slow side? Are there factors such as new businesses or factory openings/closings that are affecting your market? The value of anything, including houses, is determined by the supply and demand. If there are lots of sellers and few buyers, prices tend to go down and houses take longer to sell. This is referred to as a "Buyers market".
On the other hand, if there are many eager buyers, but few homes for sale, prices will rise and houses will sell very quickly. This is a "Seller’s market".
Your area may be at one extreme or the other, but most likely is somewhere in between. Next, take a look at your neighborhood. Compare your home to others based on criteria such as style, size, number of bedrooms and baths, garage, basement, pool, view, lot size, etc. You should soon get a good feel for what price your home should bring given the current market conditions.
Remember: Keep your emotions in check and just look at the facts!
"But where in the heck do you get all of this information?" For do it yourselfer’s all of the information about closed sales is public record, so you could obtain it from your local city or municipal records.
If you decide to hire Kim & Gord to market your home, they will bring all of the information to you, including all Active, Solds, Terminated, Cancelled and Expired Listings. A comprehensive report is pre-pared that adjusts for differences in Age, Size, Lot, and a host of other important considerations. Kim & Gord look at an average of 100-150 homes a month, so determining your highest sales price is what they do best!
LET THE SCRUBBING BEGIN!
The first order of business is to make your house shine from top to bottom, inside and out. There is no such thing as too clean. Pay special attention to the kitchen and bathrooms. People don’t buy dirty, messy homes! You would think that this is obvious, but an amazing number of people put their home on the market without cleaning it up first.
Your home should be clean, but that’s just the beginning. Odors from smoking and pets will scare buyers away fast. Now is also the time to fix all of those little items that you’ve been meaning to get to. Kim excels at staging your home for the highest impact in the marketplace. Feel free to ask for references from happy clients.
IT’S SHOW TIME! Once the price is set and the preparation is done, bring on the buyers! If you are selling your home yourself, casually guide them through your home, starting with your homes most outstanding features. Stay with them, but give them room to breathe, or you may make them uncomfortable.
Don’t Forget The Paperwork There are lots of forms and contracts used in the selling of real estate, and you need to be very familiar with them. This includes purchase agreements, addendums, cost breakdowns, title reports, disclosure forms, counter offers, and more.
Many areas also have MANDATORY disclosure forms for property. Failure to complete these disclosures can result in stiff financial penalties!
The price is always the focal point of the offer, but there are lots of other areas that you need to address and pay close attention to also. When reviewing an offer, make sure that every aspect of the transaction is spelled out specifically. Details that are not clear or are left out can lead to big problems down the road.
Some of the items that you want to be sure to spell out in detail when considering an offer include:
· PRICE
· DOWN PAYMENT
· EARNEST MONEY DEPOSIT
· IS THE BUYER PRE-APPROVED
· CLOSING/POSSESSION DATES
· APPRAISAL - WHO PAYS
· HOME PROTECTION PLAN
· INSPECTIONS - WHAT TYPE AND WHO PAYS
· ITEMS INCLUDED (WASHER/DRYER, REFRIGERATOR, ETC)
· CONTINGENCIES - WHAT AND HOW LONG-are they reasonable or have they given themselves an easy out clause
Spelling out every detail can save lots of confusion and misunderstandings, and keep you out of a costly court battle!
One area where you need to be very careful is contingencies. These are things that must or must not happen in order for the transaction to be valid.
For example, the purchase may be contingent upon the buyer getting approved for their financing, on getting a favorable inspection report, or many other things. Make sure to spell out the contingency clearly, as well as what specifically will happen if the contingency is or isn’t met.
The important thing is to keep your goals in mind throughout your negotiations. This will guide you, and help keep you from making bad decisions based on emotion.
The Benefit of the Realtor? As you can see, selling your home involves much more than simply sticking a "For Sale" sign in your yard and packing boxes. That is the main reason why over 90% of all sellers hire a real estate agent to handle the details for them. This is not to say that you can’t sell your home on your own - in fact, in some situations this may make sense for you. More about selling on your own in a minute. For those of you who have decided to hire an agent, the big question is.
"WHICH AGENT SHOULD WE PICK?"
This can really be quite a difficult decision, especially if you don’t know what to look for and what questions to ask. The thing that makes it the toughest is that most all real estate agents say the same thing: "We are the biggest", "I sell the most", "We are #1", "The only choice", "Top Producer", "Award Winner" Everything most agents say focuses on one of two things… themselves and their company! As a seller, you don’t care about any of that stuff!
You only care about how the real estate agent can help you achieve your goals. How will the agents services directly benefit you? What specific benefits do they offer that are above and beyond what every other agent does? That’s what you really want to know, isn’t it? The heck with all of the sales hype and double talk! I am not saying that you shouldn’t go with an agent that is with a strong company and has a track record of success - not at all. What I am saying is that you should look for an agent whose primary focus is on helping you, not blowing their own horn! In fact if you do decide to sell your home on your own, I will advertise it on my website for free, including a photo-tour! We are in the business of helping people, and if we help you achieve your goals, you may put in a good word for us, to others you know who are not willing to take on the task of selling their home on their own.
Conclusion Hopefully, this report has given you some insight into the process of selling your home. It may also have prompted a whole new set of questions.
To get all of the answers you need, simply give us a call to schedule your free, no-hassle, straight talk consultation. We will arrange a time convenient for you, and it shouldn’t take long at all. In about 30 minutes, you’ll receive more time and money saving real estate information than most people learn in a lifetime! By now, you’ve probably figured out that we’re not like most real estate agents. We concentrate on providing quality information to those who need it. "But why would you just give away all of this valuable information?" I know that you may be asking that question in your mind. I know it’s not what most real estate agents do, and it may seem a little odd. It’s just that we have learned that good things happen when you concentrate on really helping people. Yes, we make our living selling real estate, and yes, we would love to handle the details of your sale for you. BUT ONLY IF THAT’S WHAT YOU DECIDE TO DO AFTER YOU HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION TO MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION! A half-hour is all it takes to get the information you need to make smart decisions for your future. We’ll discuss what you want to accomplish, and look at the different options that you have. Well, I’ve said just about all I can say. The next step is up to you. As I said before, there is absolutely no cost or obligation attached to your free consultation. Pick up the phone and call us now, while you are thinking about it. I know that you may be a little skeptical, but one phone call isn’t much to risk, especially when you could save yourself lots of aggravation and thousands of dollars!
You can reach us by phone or by email. Procrastination keeps more people from ever reaching their dreams than anything else. Don’t miss out on information that can make all the difference!
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