15 Steps to Selling Your Home

Decide to Sell Your Home: This step may seem obvious, but it’s extremely important. You do not want to waste the valuable time of agents and buyers if you are not fully committed to selling your home.

Prepare Your Home for Sale: Prior to contacting a real estate agent, prepare your home. Think back to all of those repairs that you have been meaning to get to. Fix anything that is broken including: electrical outlets, switches, burnt out light bulbs, plumbing leaks, and doors that won't latch. Patch and paint nail holes. Thoroughly clean the house. Throw out all of the clutter that you have acquired, or pack it away, or have a garage sale. Trim trees and shrubs, and clean up the yard. You want your house to be in the best condition to get the highest sales price and have the least surprises during inspections.

Find a Competent Real Estate Agent: This is probably the most important step. You can gain a lot of peace of mind and save a lot of heartache if you find a really good real estate agent.

Set Price and Terms: Once you have selected your agent, work with your agent to determine the price and terms that best meet your objectives. Your agent should provide you with a detailed analysis of the area to give you a baseline to start with.

Sign Listing Paperwork: You will sign paperwork which will describe agency relationships, property location, price, terms, commissions, and the length of the listing. Your agent will also work with you to identify all of the attributes of your home for the MLS database and other advertising. You will need to decide if you want the refrigerator, washer, and dryer to convey, and if there are any special fixtures that you plan on taking with you.

Fill Out the Seller Disclosure Document: While this document is technically not required until you have an executed contract, this is a great time to complete it and have it available for prospective buyers. Make sure that you disclose anything that might be pertinent to the history of the house.

Show Your Home: Your agent will get the advertising rolling. Most of the time you will get a few hours to a day's notice prior to a showing, but sometimes last minute calls do come in. Do your best to accommodate every showing. If the buyer doesn't see it, the buyer doesn't buy it!

Analyze the Offer: Wonderful. You have an offer! Make sure your agent reviews and explains the purchase contract and the details of the offer. Have your agent check that the contract is complete and that the timelines are reasonable. After analysis, you can accept the offer or submit a counter offer. If you counter, the buyer may cancel, accept your counter, or send you a counter offer. Hopefully you will both come to agreement and arrive at an accepted purchase contract.

Be Ready for Inspections: Inspections will be coordinated through your agent. You are required to make the house available for inspections. Make sure that the inspectors can access all of the walls, outlets, attic access locations, and crawls space access locations. After inspections, the buyer's agent will send a BINSR, which is the document where the buyer asks the seller to make certain repairs. The seller can fix all of the items, some of the items, or none of the items (although the seller is required to fix major systems, such as a non-functioning air conditioner). If the seller refuses to fix something, the buyer can chose to accept the seller's response, or cancel the contract.

The Buyers Loan: If the buyer is getting a loan, the buyer will have applied for the loan, and should be busy getting the lender any paperwork that the lender might require. Your agent should make sure that the buyer's loan is progressing. The buyer will have a loan contingency and an appraisal contingency. If the home does not appraise or if the lender refuses to give the buyer a loan, then the buyer can cancel the contract and get the earnest money returned.

Make Your Repairs: When you get through the inspection of your home and the appraisal is complete, you should be fairly confident that the transaction will go through and it is time to do the repairs and any other items that you may have agreed to do in your contract. There is no reason for the seller to expend money prior to this point in case the deal falls through. When repairs are made, make sure that you pay for them in full and obtain receipts to show proof of the repairs.

Set Up Moving Day: Call the movers and start packing. You are required to keep the utilities on through the day of close, so call the utility companies and have the utilities transferred out of your name as of the day of close. The buyers should also be calling to have the utilities transferred into their names.

Sign the Closing Documents: Once the escrow company has all of the paperwork from the buyer's lender, the closing documents can be drawn up, and you will be contacted to meet with the escrow officer to sign the paperwork. Be sure to review and understand the closing documents and, in particular, the settlement statement (HUD-1).

Clean the House: After everything has been packed up, make sure to give the house a thorough cleaning. Sweep and vacuum the floors. Vacuum out the drawers and wipe down the cabinet shelves. Pull any nails, fill the holes, and touch up the paint. Leave your extra keys, garage door remotes, ceiling fan remotes, mail keys, and any user manuals that you might have for the appliances. The buyer's agent will typically take the key out of the lockbox and give it to the buyer when the sale records.

Await the Call: On the day of close, once the escrow company has received all of the buyer's funds, the escrow officer will send the deed to be recorded. Once the deed is recorded, the escrow officer will disburse funds and call you or your agent to inform you that your sale has completed. Congratulations! Don't forget to check your bank account to make sure that your proceeds were deposited.