The first thing you should know about the home selling process is that it’s going to be stressful. How stressful, you ask?
Well, one recent survey revealed that nearly 40% of people admit to crying at least once while selling a home. Another 20% admit to crying more than five times while trying to sell a house.
If you want to avoid being moved to tears while parting ways with your house, then you should try to figure out what to expect heading in. Things will go so much smoother when you know how to sell a home without all the usual stress.
Let’s take a look at how the home selling process will play out from start to finish. We’ll also sprinkle some house selling tips into the mix to help you make your next move a complete success.
You’ll Kick Things Off by Making the Decision to Sell Your Home
Before the home selling process can get underway, you’ll need to sit down and decide that you want to sell your home. This is obviously going to be a very important step in terms of getting the ball rolling.
You should think long and hard about whether or not you want to sell your home and list your reasons for wanting to do it. Maybe you want to sell your house because it’s too small for your growing family, or maybe you want to do it to capitalize on the red-hot real estate market in your area.
Whatever the case, you should be sure you’re 100% committed to selling your home before you do it. It’ll make you feel more confident about sticking a “For Sale” sign in your front yard.
You’ll Call on a Real Estate Agent to Lend a Helping Hand
There are some people who will attempt to sell their house on their own. But more often than not, you’re going to want to work with an experienced real estate agent when selling a home.
Your real estate agent can help you:
- Figure out what your home is worth
- Decide which features to include in your home listing
- Take great photos of your home
- List your home for sale
- Market your home while it sits on the open market
You might even want to go the extra mile and hire a real estate broker. A real estate broker is a step up from a real estate agent, and they can make the home selling process very easy for you.
You’ll Officially Put Your House on the Market
After you’ve found a real estate agent or real estate broker to help you with selling your house, the next order of business will be making your home sale official. You’ll want to have your agent list your home for sale.
When they do this, they’ll put a “For Sale” sign on it. They’ll also add it to the MLS listings so that other people can see that it’s for sale. It should help you start generating interest in your home right away.
You’ll Invite People Into Your Home to See What It’s All About
Once people begin to see that your home is for sale, some of them will start to contact your real estate agent about setting up showings. They’ll want to see your home inside and out so that they can decide if it’s right for them.
Your agent might also choose to set up an open house for you so that a large group of people can come and see your house all at once. It’s an excellent way to stir up interest in your home and help it sell quicker.
You’ll Consider Offers From Those Interested in Buying Your Home
As long as everything goes according to plan up until this point, there should be at least a few potential homebuyers who start to show serious interest in your home. You’ll know that they’re serious because they’ll begin to make offers to you through your real estate agent.
With any luck, your agent will start calling you and saying, “We have an offer!”, every few days. You’ll then be able to sift through the offers that you receive to see which ones you like best.
Things don’t always progress this quickly. You might not get offers right away, which might be reason enough to consider dropping the price of your home slightly to encourage people to give it another look.
But as of right now, homes all across the country are selling fast. So you shouldn’t have to wait too long for offers to start coming in.
You’ll Accept the Best Offer and Close on Your Home
When you start receiving offers for your home, you should look at each of them and see which ones look the most enticing. In a perfect world, you’ll get plenty of offers that are either at or even above your asking price.
From there, it’ll be your job to pick the one that you like the most and accept it. It’ll put you on the road to selling your home and moving out of it.
A buyer might request a home inspection so that they can see if there are any issues that they’ll have to worry about when buying your home. They might also ask you to make some minor repairs to your home before they buy it.
But this part of the home selling process shouldn’t take too long to play out. You should be able to sell your home in no time once you accept an offer for it.
The Home Selling Process Doesn’t Have to Stress You Out
There is no way to eliminate all the stress from the home selling process. But by using the basic house selling strategies that we’ve laid out here, you should put yourself in a good position when selling a house.
Do you want to get access to more tips on selling a home without stressing yourself out? Browse through the other real estate articles and read them!