If you’re interested in moving or just taking advantage of a hot real estate market, you might want to sell your San Antonio home. While many home sales go smoothly, with no interruptions or major challenges, this is far from a guarantee.
You have to be proactive and strategize if you want to sell your home as smoothly as possible. In this guide, we’ll cover the basics of how to do it.
Why does a “smooth” home sale matter?
There’s no strategy that can guarantee a smooth home sale in San Antonio, but these tips will significantly increase your likelihood of success:
1. Understand the sale process. First, make sure you understand the general flow of the sale process. You’ll need to crunch some numbers to figure out how much your home could be worth, prepare your home for sale by cleaning and staging it (and potentially moving out your old things), and begin marketing your home. After that, you’ll show the home, receive purchase offers, and negotiate with some of the best offers. Assuming you accept an offer, you’ll open escrow and order the title, you’ll schedule an appraisal, and then you’ll need to follow the home inspection, renegotiate potential repairs (and the home price), and sign the final paperwork. The better you understand these steps, the more prepared you’ll be.
2. Set your personal priorities. Next, you’ll need to set your personal priorities. These are different for every home seller, but the better you understand them, the more effectively and decisively you’ll be able to act in the process. Are you hoping to get the highest possible purchase price? Do you want to sell the home quickly? Or do you just want as few additional headaches as possible?
3. Work with an agent. Even if you have some experience in real estate, it’s a good idea to work with a professional real estate agent. Your agent will provide you with advice and direction throughout the home sale process, helping you stage the home, market it, and price it appropriately – while handling much of the front lines of negotiation. They’ll make sure you get the smoothest, least stressful experience possible.
4. Start packing early. Selling a home is stressful because you’ll have to move out of your current residence. To ease the burden here, try to start packing well in advance of the sale. If you commit to spending just 15 minutes per day on packing, in the span of a couple weeks, you’ll be in a much better position.
5. Decide on a list price. One of the biggest decisions you’ll have to make as a home seller in San Antonio is your list price. Your agent may have a recommendation for you, but you should also do your research. Setting the list price, a bit lower than you see for comparable homes in your area may make your property more enticing, attracting many offers quickly. But you may be interested in getting the highest possible sale price – in which case, you may need to be prepared for fewer, slower offers.
6. Inspect and make repairs. Your buyer will likely undergo a home inspection, where they’ll have the chance to review the property and make requests for repairs. It’s in your best interest to beat them to the punch. Conduct your own home inspection and look for imperfections and structural flaws the buyer may not want to deal with. If you fix them early, you’ll be in a much better position – and you’ll have fewer headaches to deal with later.
7. Clean the home thoroughly. Cleaning the home is an important strategic move if you want to sell the home quickly. It’s going to make the home immediately more appealing when you market it and show it to potential buyers. It’s also a good chance to uncover points of damage or flaws that may need to be corrected.
8. Stage the home. Staging the home takes time and effort – and costs money if you’re hiring a staging company. But it’s well worth the investment. Staging a home professionally is going to make it much more attractive in photos and in person; it’s going to help you attract stronger offers (and attract them faster) and close the deal in a timelier manner.
9. Prepare for showings. If you’re still occupying the property during the sale process, you’ll need to prepare for showings. Keep things clean, tidy, and as impersonal as possible to avoid turning off potential buyers.
10. Review offers carefully. Finally, spend time reviewing your offers carefully. You’ll want to consider a number of factors when looking at different offers – not just the bottom-line price. For example, a letter of preapproval from a legitimate lending institution can make you feel more confident that this buyer won’t have financing issues. Similarly, an all-cash offer or a waived inspection can hasten and simplify the home sale process tremendously.
Selling a home in San Antonio doesn’t have to be complicated or stressful. Everything gets a lot easier when you have a professional on your side, helping you through every step of the process. Contact Green Residential today to learn how we can help!
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