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Seller's Guide

Everything you need to know about putting your home on the market, accepting an offer, and closing on your home.

A Step-by-Step First Time Seller's Guide

Putting your home on the market can be a stressful process, especially when you don’t know what to expect. Fortunately, with the help of an experienced team of real estate agents and this easy to follow guide, you can smoothly complete the process. Following these steps will help you prepare so you can get organized and sell your home for the best price possible.​​​​​​​

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Step 1: Understand Why You're Selling

What do you want to accomplish with the sale of your home? Do you want to make a certain amount of money that you can put toward a larger or nicer home? Do you need to sell it as soon as possible to facilitate a move to a new city or area? Once you understand your needs, you can better craft your offer. For example, if you need to sell quickly, you might want to price your home lower than if your goal is to make a certain profit margin. Make sure you convey these needs to your team of real estate agents once you choose one so they can adjust your selling price accordingly.

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Step 2: Determine Selling Price

Knowing how to price your home is one of the most important parts of the selling process. When you set a fair price in the beginning, you’ll get the most interest from other real estate agents and prospective buyers. Overpricing your home could lead to reduced interest, and underpricing leads to receiving less than what your home is worth. Working with a team of real estate agents is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. A team of real estate agents with experience can determine what other comparable homes are selling for, evaluate the current market, and may even suggest a home appraisal.

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Step 3: Start Preparations

If you’ve kept your home in showroom condition since you’ve lived in it, you’re in the minority of homeowners. Once you price your home, it’s time to start getting it ready to be shown to potential buyers. This includes getting rid of clutter, depersonalizing the space so that buyers can envision themselves in the space, making any small repairs, and doing a deep clean to make sure your home is in pristine condition.

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Step 4: Develop a Marketing Strategy

We will develop a marketing strategy that is perfect for advertising your home. This involves listing the home and then driving the right people to that listing through social media campaigns, agent-to-agent referrals, traditional media, or SEO advertising. Our team creates a marketing campaign that aims to get the most possible traffic to your listing in the first three weeks after becoming a client.

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Step 5: Evaluate Offers

Receiving an offer is an exciting part of the process, but it doesn’t mean the journey is over. We will evaluate each offer and make sure the party making the offer is prequalified or pre-approved by a mortgage lender and that their offer is acceptable to you. If the offer is too low, you can make a counter-offer or offer other ways to bridge the gap, such as covering some or all of the closing costs, making repairs, adjusting the move-in date, or leaving some appliances or fixtures for the new buyer.

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Step 6: Accept an Offer

Once we deem the offer is acceptable, we will review the proposed contract to make sure it’s all in order and includes the necessary components such as deposit amount, down payment, financing, inspection rights and repair allowances, contingencies, settlement date, and a list of fees and who will pay them. When both parties have agreed to the term, a final contract will be prepared by your team of real estate agents.

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Step 7: Get Ready to Close

You have accepted an offer and are now very close to the end of your selling journey. But first, you and the buyer must make a list of what needs to be done before closing. In some cases, your home may need to be formally inspected, surveyed, and appraised. In other cases, major or minor repairs will need to be made before the house can close. We will head up efforts to develop and execute this list, get each action item paid for by the correct party, and make sure everything is in order by the closing date. A few days before the closing date, we will call the company closing the transaction to make sure everything is ready to go. If you haven’t done so already, you also need to make arrangements to move out of the home so the new buyer can take possession.

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Step 8: Close

You’ve reached the last step in the seller’s process. When you close on a home you are selling, you are legally transferring ownership of the property to the new buyer. We will meet with the company closing the transaction to sign the final paperwork and go over any issues that have not yet been taken care of. During this time, you can also make plans with your team of real estate agents to handle final details such as canceling utilities, cable, and lawn or trash services, changing the name on accounts that the new owner is retaining and ensuring the new owner has instructions for all appliances that will remain in the home.

Congratulations!

Once you have sold your home, you’re free to take the next step on your journey. Whether this is relocating to a new city, moving into a larger home, or downsizing and enjoying your life as empty-nesters, knowing all your selling responsibilities have been taken care of will help you achieve peace of mind for your new path.

Our Testimonials

See why our clients love working with us.
Seller

Seller

I had the pleasure of working with Lauren to sell a piece of vacant land, and I couldn't be more impressed with her persistence and dedication. She was so professional throughout the entire process, showing determination and te...
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Seller

Seller

Lauren made the sale of my property super easy for me. It was a great experience, and I am looking forward to going with her on future endeavors. Would highly recommend her for anyone looking to buy or sell property! Just wante...
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Buyer

Buyer

This will be long but worth it, Lauren will treat you as if she’s known you her whole life. She truly does put her clients' wants and needs before anything else. This was our first time as homebuyers, and if I had to do it all ...
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Buyer

Buyer

Stephanie was a phenomenal realtor who was extraordinarily patient, kind, and thoughtful in our ordeal. Always nice, she took us through several locations until we found our Happy Home. She is a hard worker, never complains, an...
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Buyer

Buyer

I was introduced by a mutual friend while I was in process of moving from another state. Stephanie from the start was very professional. She met with me in person while my wife was on the phone because she was still out of stat...
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Buyer

Buyer

Stephanie is a very professional and helpful agent with a positive attitude. She always kept in touch throughout the process. She helped answer our many questions. If she wasn't sure of the answer, she would find out and get ri...
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Seller

Seller

Stephanie represented us very well in the sale of our land. She went out immediately, putting signs on the property and then followed up by letting us know in a timely fashion whether we were getting any offers or not. Through ...
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A. & M.

A. & M.

We want to thank Jennifer one more time for being so helpful with getting everything done so fast and making it so stress-free on our end. We'll definitely tell friends and family about you and how professional you handle work ...
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Mark W.

Mark W.

Jennifer Farrell is not only a realtor, she is a go getter, but also a dedicated professional who has the sellers interest at heart. She listens well to any concerns, but also explains things so you have a great understanding o...
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S. & A.

S. & A.

Jennifer is an amazing realtor and had our backs all through our home purchasing process. Not only was she always responsive and helped us find our dream home, but she also negotiated to get us seller concessions and a brand ne...
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Violet N. & Kris W.

Violet N. & Kris W.

We couldn't have asked for a better realtor than Daniel Raffield to navigate the recent sale of our lake property. His expertise in the local market was invaluable, and he consistently went above and beyond to ensure a smooth a...
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T. Birgenheier

T. Birgenheier

T. C. Shand and his team operate their business with great responsiveness and integrity. We highly recommend Empire Real Estate of Florida for your next real estate transaction. You can look long and hard, but you will not find...
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B. Shealy

B. Shealy

Great company, very professional people, I would use them or refer them to anyone I know!
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A. Spikes

A. Spikes

We appreciate the support of a professional realtor during the acquisition of a recent purchase of land. Very knowledgeable and quick to respond to inquiries.
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B.J. Pitts

B.J. Pitts

Wow! Hard to summarize TC and Savannah Shand into a couple of sentences! They are amazing. I would 100% recommend them. They sold our Barndo on Hornbill and did an outstanding job from start to finish! Their advertising is amaz...
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G. Helms

G. Helms

TC Shand was super helpful, friendly, knowledgeable, and professional. He was happy to answer all my questions and guided me through the process. His service was exceptional, and I would highly recommend him to anyone selling o...
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