The Selling Process
UNDERSTANDING THE STEPS, FROM LISTING TO CLOSING
Selling your home requires careful coordination so it's ready to hit the market at the right time. One of the important components of selling a home involves clear and consistent communication with my clients. While there are a lot of factors to consider, I act as your advocate and guide to provide you with the necessary information to determine the appropriate listing price, how to best prepare your property, and a comprehensive marketing strategy.
Over the years, I have established strong connections with a reliable team of professionals, including photographers, home stagers, inspectors, and others, ensuring every detail is expertly managed for a seamless and successful closing.
Getting Started
UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS
Before you commit to list with a broker, you can ask for a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA). This is the first thing I do for potential sellers, even before a brokerage services agreement is signed. The CMA plays a huge part in pricing your home. It pulls in key market data points to provide a snapshot of homes currently on the market as well as any recent sales with a location and property features similar to your home.
With my CMA, I'll analyze all the data for the properties that closely match your home to give you a fair market price range recommendation for what I would list your home.
Step 1: Meet and greet
You need to be comfortable with who's helping you through this important decision. Meet with potential brokers and tell them everything about your home, and I mean everything. As for me, I have yet to encounter an issue I can't work with or around, but it's important to know all the details about your home so I can best understand what needs to be done.
Step 2: Determine list price
The only thing a CMA can't tell me is the condition your home is currently in, so while I've given a price range of what the market will bear, the final list price will depend on what work the property receives. I'll make recommendations on what I feel are the most important things to address based on past experience.
Step 3: Make it official
It's time to commit when you've found the right real estate broker. As a Windermere broker working in Washington state, I must have my sellers sign form 28S - Windermere's brokerage services agreement before starting my work. Once we've made our relationship official, I'll start sourcing bids to get real numbers for the work we've determined needs to be done. Keep in mind that you don't have to use the subcontractors I recommend; you're more than welcome to source your own.
Step 4. Prepare the property
This is when things start happening quickly. Using the bids provided by my subcontractors or yours, you'll select who you want to do the items that you've decided to do to the house prior to listing it. Depending on when we want to list the property and how much work will be done, there may be a few different groups working at the same time. Don't stress - I'll be scheduling and managing these tasks, so you won't have to worry about it.
Step 5. Marketing
After we've taken care of the prep work, the marketing begins. Well-staged homes attract a lot of interest, so I always start with staging the property to enhance your home's look and feel, providing potential buyers with a clear picture of what it would be like to live there. Once staged, I use top-quality photographers and videographers to shoot stunning listing photos of your home as well as a custom video tour video that sings your home's praises! I'll also write the description to be used on our area's Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) website and syndicate it to ALL agent websites as well as popular consumer search sites like Zillow, Homes.com, Redfin, and others.
Step 6. It's GO time!
This is the moment we've been waiting for - listing day! Whenever possible, I try to list on a Thursday, as many buyers and their brokers are looking for open houses being held the upcoming weekend. I like to hold public open houses on both Saturday and Sunday and a broker's open on Monday after we list to get the most attention and foot traffic.
Step 7. Reviewing the offers
Having an offer review date will motivate interested buyers to get their offers in quickly and make them as strong as possible. Because you've put in the work to make your home spectacular, the chances of selling your home for a list or higher are increased. On the offer review date, we'll sit down and look at the offers - amounts AND terms - to help you decide which is the best one for your situation and negotiate where needed.
Step 8. Offer accepted!
Once you've decided which offer to accept, you'll sign the mutual agreement accepting the offer. You'll start receiving messages from the escrow officer, who will handle the collection and holding of your earnest money, which is the buyer's upfront financial commitment to buying the home. The escrow officer will also provide you with a settlement statement outlining all the fees and expenses for which you'll be responsible.
Seller Story
I contacted Kelly on May 21, 2020 and she had my house touched up, staged, sold (over asking price) and closed by July 3. Concurrently she found my new home with all my must-haves. Amazing! Kelly has excellent relationships with the many businesses and people needed to sell and/or buy a house. She coordinated everyone so that we were not inconvenienced, no small feat especially during Covid time. She worked tirelessly for me and my family, always with a smile (and a latte if needed). I will definitely employ her again.
Elana
