SELLING YOUR HOME - PART I

Welcome to GoHsv.com. I appreciate you taking the time to visit my blog. GoHsv.com is the best source of information for everything Huntsville, AL. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at mike@gohsv.com.

The first part of "Selling Your Home" will have to do with what is involved in selling your home. Don't worry, you won't (and never will) hear me bad mouthing FSBO's ( For Sale By Owner's), saying how bad it is and you must use a Realtor. This is strictly the meat and potatoes of what happens and what needs to be done, regardless if you are selling your home yourself or you hire a Realtor to market your home.

Now, you know you want to sell your home. What now? Well, how about pricing your home. How much should you sell your home for? The best thing to do is to consult a Realtor, regardless if you use them to market your home or not. Almost all Realtors will provide you a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis), which compares your home to homes as close to yours as possible to determine a value, free of charge. They should give you a good range to price your home for the most money in the least amount of time.

The next step is to get your home ready to show. The best thing to do is to get in your car and drive around the block. Then pull up to your home as if you are looking to buy it. Have a pen and note pad with you. Pay attention to the yard, landscaping, and anything that needs to be repaired or cleaned. Next, walk in your home. Look at everything, room by room, from the carpet and paint to any cleaning or repairs that might need to be done. Really knit pick as much as you can, because more than likely the buyers will. A huge factor is to make the rooms seem as big as possible. Lose as much clutter as you can, this is even more impotant on smaller homes. Having your home in as good as condition as possible will greatly help the chances of selling your home quickly.

Now you need to make sure that you do have a termite bond, or have an inspection done to get a "termite letter." Alabama does have termites and before you sell your home, you have to have a termite letter stating that your home is free and clear of termites. It is also acceptable that the home did have termites, but they were taken care of and any repairs that needed to be made were taken care of.

Ok, now we have the price that we are going to sell your home at, your home is ready to show and you have your termite letter.

It is time to get your home on the market. Either selling it yourself FSBO, or hiring a Realtor to market it for you. I will be getting into more detail on the differences in later posts. But, whichever you decide to do, you have got to let people know your home is for sale. If you have alot of traffic going past your home, just by putting a sign out, alot of people are going to see it. If you live on a cul-de-sac street, or out in the country with not alot of traffic, you will not have the exposure just by putting the sign up. There are alot of ways to market your home, and the more advertising you do the better.

Ok, now you are getting calls about your home. It is time to schedule showings (either you or your Realtor) and get prospective buyers in your home to see it. You will have to be as flexible as possible to the buyers.

Once a prospective buyer decides they want to make an offer on your home, we begin the neogotiation process. Everyting is neogotiable. From the price, closing costs, to the refridgerator, window coverings, washer and dryer, etc. Note: if you and the buyers are within $1,000 - $2,000 of making the deal happen, think long and hard about walking away from it. You could save that by selling your home now and not having your home sit on the market longer and paying that money into your mortgage which will not drop the principal nearly as much.

Now you have an agreed upon contract, and all the contingencies have been dropped. Contingencies could be: the buyers needing to seller their home before they can buy yours, a home inspection, an appraisal etc.

Alabama does use closing attorney's, not title companies. If you are using a Realtor, then they will take care of it. If you are selling on your own, then you will need to find one. The best thing to do is ask around, see if anyone you know has used one that they liked.

Like I said, I am just giving you a rough overview of selling your home. There are alot of specifics in each area. I will be going through the differences in each area or selling on your own (FSBO) or hiring a Realtor.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, you can email me at mike@gohsv.com. Do not be sucked into thinking that the home market is horrible and prices are dropping. Huntsville has a very stable market due to the influx of companies coming in and Brac that will be here in the upcoming years.

Again, thank you for your time and enjoy GoHsv.com. Have a great day.