| A real estate agent will provide you with all needed services to help you search and find a home to buy, or help you market and sell your home. If you work closely with an agent, they will provide you with expert advice every step of the home buying or selling process. They will assist and stay abreast of all needed requirements to help you buy or sell a home all the way through the sales process to the closing or completion of escrow Real estate agents have fiduciary duties for ethical, confidential and fair dealings with both buyers and sellers. A estate buyer’s agent represents the buyer. A buyer’s agent may be paid by either the seller or rarely, the buyer. After reviewing your finances with you and your lender, and after accessing your home purchase needs, a buyer’s agent organizes your home search and helps plan and implement all steps of the home purchase transaction. A seller’s agent represents the seller. A seller’s agent focuses on creating a marketing plan and then sets in motion a series of marketing tools (Agent’s Marketing Plan, below) that will get the attention of other real estate agents who have prospects (who may be waiting for a property like yours to come on the market) to help make a sell of your home happen in a timely manner, while at the same time, netting you the highest possible price with the most favorable terms they can get. Both types of real estate agents continue to work with you through to the close of escrow. They are available to answer any questions that arise and help put out any fires that erupt on your side during the process. They are there as an agent representing their principal (buyer or seller), represent you during inspections, available to help interpret any documents and answer non-legal questions and to give advice throughout the complex process of buying or selling a home. Review the Steps to Buying or Selling a Home to get an overview of what to expect from either one of these processes. Prepare Home To Sell: Freshen It Up! ! Clean, clear, declutter house and cabinets, clean and dust all window coverings, replace and fix broken items, make minor repairs, clean up and declutter the landscaping, clean up entry area (clean the front door and make sure the lock has a good appearance), wash the windows, wash down the walkways, replace or repair any torn screens, fix any drips and analyze and replace any needed faucets, fertilize the lawns and plants, trim shrubs, weeds, trees. Add fresh plants and flowers in the interior and exterior. Check for pet odors and add some interior aroma therapy air freshener scents. Check your home’s curb appeal and try to dress it up, if possible. Dark paint, wallpaper, or floor coverings make a room smaller and should be changed to lighter colors if possible. Touch up paint both inside and outside, repaint in neutral colors any unusual colored walls, objectively analyze carpet condition and color (decide if it would be better to clean or replace with a neutral color). Always leave window treatments open or up and interior and exterior lights on for showings. You want to let in as much light as possible to give a light, airy appearance. A fire burning in the fireplace is a cozy effect to use when showing your home. Baking bread or cookies, and the aroma of a fresh pot of coffee are also great background effects. Try to have your whole family leave for the showings, so the potential buyer will take the time to comfortably look around and consider your home. Spring and fall are the most popular times to sell your home. However, this will be the time when you will also have the most competition with competitors, attempting to sell their home at the same time. Fill-Out Agent Referral Form Request ! Fill out our Agent referral form for a qualified and experienced agent. Ask for a free home valuation. Get An Appraisal ! Have a professional appraisal to determine the accurate value of your home before it goes on the market. You can present the appraisal to interested parties to substantiate your asking price. Get A Home Inspection ! You’ll save a lot of time and generally get a better price by having the home and other inspections done before the home goes on the market. As a general rule, buyers will expect major systems, appliances, the roof, electrical, plumbing, and door locks to be in good working order unless the home is being sold as a "fixer upper". If you don’t go ahead and have the inspection done previous to putting it on the market, should a negative inspection come back, the buyer will expect you to discount the price, accordingly. Get the inspection, fix what you can afford to fix and disclose the rest from the beginning. Get A Termite or Pest Control Inspection ! Don’t wait for surprises. Find out the extent of the damage and fix what you are willing to fix and put a cap on the limit. Disclose the report and the work already completed. Keep yourself in control and in the driver’s seat throughout the sale. If the buyer doesn’t agree with what you are willing or not willing to do, let them walk. Interview With Real Estate Agent / Sign Listing Agreement ! Consultation and marketing presentation with the real estate agent telling you about him or herself and showing how he or she will successfully market your home to achieve the desired end result, the sale of your home. ! The agent will walk through your home and make suggestions of things you can do to improve the salability of your home which will help attract a better price. ! A review of the comparative market analysis prepared by the agent, on what comparable properties have sold for, are listed for and what is present competition on the current market in your neighborhood. ! A seller’s agent fiduciary duty to you as a seller is to get you the highest possible price and the best possible terms. ! Discuss appraisal and home inspection results with agent. A listing agent or broker gives you advise on how to get your home sold in a timely manner and how to pass a favorable home inspection, takes th listing, shows the home to other agents, and actively markets the home, so it will lead to a sale that nets you the highest possible price, given the present market conditions. Sometimes the listing agency is the selling agency, particularly if they have buying prospects waiting for the same type of property. The fees for the listing/selling broker or agent are usually paid by the seller as a percentage of the selling price. ! Compare relevant market data on comparable homes that have been sold or are listed for sale ! Determine if this is a buyers or sellers market through discussions with agent. Discuss marketing strategy to be implemented by agent. ! Discuss with agent what they will do to market your home (see agent marketing plan, below) ! Sign listing agreement. You need to give your agent copies of front door key, copies of your deed, and title policy (if you have a current one). Agent Creates Marketing Tools / Makes Marketing Preparations ! Marketing preparations / tools are created by agent Make Needed Home Repairs ! Make any additional suggested repairs suggested by real estate agent Home Showings By Agents ! Home showings by agents to preapproved ready willing and able buyers Review Offers / Accept Offer ! With agent: review offers, negotiate with prospective buyers, accept best offer, open escrow. Home Inspection By Buyer ! Home inspection by prospective purchaser (the prospective buyer pays for this) Do Any Repairs You Have Agreed To Do ! Fix any repairs, you have negotiated you would do with prospective buyer, after home inspection. Disclosures ! Disclose all known defects of the property for sale. Be sure to be completely honest with your disclosures. Disclose all items to be removed from the property such as lighting fixtures and appliances. Supply Requested Documents ! Supply all requested documents, close escrow. Correctly Price Your Home So It Will Sell To optimize the amount that you will receive for your home and to sell it in a timely manner, you need to initially have the pricing value set at an accurate level with a little added extra for negotiations. Realtors will usually tell you that if your home doesn’t sell within 90 days, the price is set too high. This may or may not be true. Other factors such as local economic conditions, number of homes on the market, number of buyers who can afford and qualify for your home, the home’s physical condition, interest rates, available seller financing, and how your home measures up to the other competition on the market. The buyer ultimately is the one to determine the value of your home. To increase the amount of prospective buyers for your home especially if you don’t need to cash out of your home, provide some seller financing. This can be in the form of a second mortgage which will take the strain off the buyer for a portion of the down payment. Another incentive to provide is to pick up some of the costs and fees of a VA or FHA loan. You can adjust your sales price slightly up to take care of these costs. Your home is considered only new to the market for the first 30 days. This first thirty days is your window of opportunity to get information about your home out there to everyone. If the price is set too high, agents won’t tend to show it, and buyers will compare it against others in a similar range and realize it is overpriced. Over pricing the home will increase the amount of time the home will sit on the market, and usually results in a lower price when it finally actually sells, then the home would have received had it been priced correctly from the beginning. A home sitting too long on the market, gives buyers the impression there is something wrong with it. Buyers will usually discount the value and not offer full prices for homes that have been on the market for more than 30 days. Homes that are incorrectly priced, will also have a tough time passing the appraisal for the desired value. Appraisers have to work with comparable market data to arrive at their appraised values. Emphasize the following points when you have your agent interview. Make sure you are comfortable with this agent and the answers given to your questions. (We understand not all people are compatible. Let us know if you need a new referral.) Your goals as a seller: • Sell the property as quickly as possible, while netting the highest possible price - leaving no money on the table. • Experience as little stress as possible throughout the home selling process. • You should want an agent that will market the property as shown in our Agent Marketing Plan, below. • You also want to work with an agent that will communicate with you throughout the selling process and keep you aprised of what is transpiring with your escrow transaction. When you sell through a real estate agent, the agent takes care of all the details, inspections, makes sure prospective buyers are qualified before they come to view your home, and insures a smooth process throughout the transaction to the closing. This is why you pay an agent a 6% to 7% commission. Value Range Marketing Value range marketing is a tool that real estate agents / brokers use to span the gap between what the seller thinks his house is worth and what the market comparables say it is worth. It is a diplomatic price setting, range tool. VRM is a valuable tool to get clients, that would otherwise never consider paying the higher price of the value range (the seller’s top dollar figure), in the door and actually looking, and then reconsidering and making a purchase of a house that they initially felt was out of their top range. If the client is in the market for a home and feel they can pay up to $350,000 and see a listing for a home that is value range marketed $350,000 - $380,000, they may take a look, fall in love and make a higher offer on the home. They always have the option of offering $350,000 and if it a clean, contingency free sale - they may just get their offer accepted. Usually a buyer will make an offer somewhere in the middle of the range, get a counter offer, they slightly raise their original offer and keep negotiating until a happy medium is reached by both the buyer and seller. Not Happy About Paying Commission? Sellers are often not happy about paying commission to a selling agent. Usually this is because the sellers do not always understand what the agent actually does behind the scenes to earn their commission and make a smooth sale of their home, possible. Review the Agent Marketing Plan, just to review what is necessary timewise, to market your property and get the word out about your home to other agents and prospective buyers. The marketing plan doesn’t include the time spent negotiating with other agents to make a sale happen, plus all the many details that must be performed to make the ultimate destination, a successful closing of the sale of your home. Review the "pros and cons" articles, written by others, about selling your own home under the For Sale By Owner Section of this website. Read what others have to say about attempting to sell your own home and decide for yourself what is right for your situation. It is not a easy process selling your home, yourself.You have three options to selling your home... You will either pay to sell your home using your time or your money. Either way you choose, you are going to pay alot. These are the choices available to you: ! Sell the home through an agent and pay a fair commission of 6% - 7% to get the house marketed properly and sold, within a timely manner, at the highest possible net amount to you. You can get where you want to go, quicker, usually netting the most money if you choose this option. ! Attempt to sell the home yourself. You, will be acting as your own agent, you will be the one absorbing all costs to market your home. You will not have many of the tools listed in the Agent Marketing Plan at your disposal. You may decide to turn the property over to an agent after your attempts to sell the home, fail. Realize, you will now probably have to reduce the price as it now appears to everyone that there is something wrong with the house. At any point, you will have to be a great sales person to net what an experienced agent can net for you. They actually pay their own commission out of the higher price they will net for you using their expert sales skills. The buyers a FSBO (for sale by owner) generally attract are bargain hunters, who expect to save money by buying your home. You may have to start over and list the home with an agent to get your home sold; after reducing the price and losing all the time and money you have spent making an attempt, trying to sell your own home. ! Work with a discount broker and do all the work. You will get a listing in MLS - but agents shy away from these listings because they know they are going to have to do more than their share of the work to get the home to closing on their end - this is because the agent realizes, you don’t have an agent representing you. This spells more work for them. Discount broker also means discount service. You will be doing your own negotiating. You may not be that experienced representing yourself, and may not get the best deal for yourself in the long or short run. You can pay a la carte for the various services and have the offer or sale presentations negotiated on your behalf for you. You will not and "you should not expect" to get the same representation from an discount agent as you would get throughout the whole process with a full service agent, hired to handle the whole process. The discount agent doesn’t owe you this type of service and, therefore, you won’t get it. You may not net as much as you would have if you would have just hired a full service qualified agent to do the job. The a la carte services will add up and the discount agent really doesn’t care if you get a great deal - they aren’t being paid by you to care. Why Commissions Are As High As They Are... After a sale is made, and commission is earned, this is the breakdown of how it gets disbursed. First the total commission is split between the listing brokerage and the selling brokerage - usually 50/50. The listing broker and the selling broker split the commission, as previously agreed and contracted with their agent. On average, it costs a real estate brokerage between $15,000 and $25,000 every year per agent for a desk, license, and to use some of their real estate company services. If the agent doesn’t make a sale, it still costs the brokerage this much in overhead per agent. Agents have to split their commission with the broker. The splits vary as do the desk fees from brokerage to brokerage. A broker must make $2,000 - $5,000 in commissions a month to break even with the brokerage costs for the agent. The producing agents have to help cover the slack for the less producing agents, and therefore, must earn even more in commissions. The broker portion of the commission is spent on overhead and expenses of all types: rent or lease or mortgage payment, electric bill, telephone bills, insurance bills, taxes, maintenance, advertising and ad expenses, supplies, computer equipment, software, education, and maintenance fees, Internet fees, cleaning fees, board fees, legal fees and insurance, memberships, dues, and franchise fees to the name franchisor.( most brokerages are part of a franchise). Larger, national offices also have extra advertising, management, miscellaneous expenses to contribute toward for their particular regions. Advertising and extra marketing expenses are very high for each agent marketing listings. The top agents spend a large portion of their commissions marketing and getting word out about their listings. Top agents also spend more money on memberships, MLS fees, National, county, state Realtor monthly fees, yearly education expenses, education to achieve various designations, errors and ommission insurance, legal fees, new car expenses, client gifts, and other business expenses. A real estate agent career is not an inexpensive career. It runs upwards of at least $1500 per month just in recurring agent expenses. Note: Any commission that you negotiate down to 5% or below with an agent will result in a limited promotion by the agent. You pay them less and then they have less marketing money to work with - it’s that simple. When an agent spots the 5% (or their portion,2.5% commission) in the MLS listing, do you think they will readily show this home, if there are others to show with the full 3% commission available to them? It is human nature to pick and choose listings and show the one with the full commission for the buyer’s agent. The full or even higher commissions will always motivate an agent. Always insist on a documented list of the tools the agent will use for their marketing plan to get your home sold. If they are not prepared to provide this information in a list, say goodbye to the lazy agent. Agent Marketing Plan The following are the marketing tools that are used by agents to sell homes. Print this out and have with you to discuss with agent at agent interview. ! For sale sign in front yard (agent may place more signs in strategic areas) ! Lockbox (gives all agents access to quickly and easily show prequalified buyers your home) ! List property for sale in MLS (Multiple Listing Service - which also, subsequently, gets your property listed on Realtor.com) ! Virtual tour photography of interior and exterior lot and view ! Photographs of interior and exterior (best areas of property will be photographed) ! Virtual tour photography of interior and exterior lot and view ! Color brochures or flyers created (placed in flyer holder by for sale sign, and on premises for prospects that view the home) ! Listing on agent’s website ! Agent’s office caravan ! Email notification to "waiting" potential buyers ! Neighborhood mailings ! Tenant mailings (if applicable) ! Broker / agent caravan ! Neighborhood mailings ! Listing information flyers faxed or delivered to agents ! Open houses Copyright © 2004 Linda Ramsay, Retrader.com
Let Us Find You An Agent To Sell Your Home!
 Selling a home is the largest business transaction most of us will ever make. The selling process can be very complex, time consuming, and stressful. However with the aid of our services, be certain that you will come away completely satisfied and stress free.
One of our main responsibilities is to arrive at an accurate estimate of value for your home, so we ensure a detailed evaluation and analysis of every part of your home. Our work doesn’t stop there, as we will fully investigate the real estate market and compare your property with similar listings to make sure that you receive the  highest amount you deserve for your home, leaving no money left on the table. We will follow a step-by-step marketing program that will provide you with service that is professional and courteous. In the end, you will be sure that the price you set reflects the true value of your home under current market conditions . . . rest assured that you will be completely satisfied with your selling price once we have completed the proper research and evaluation of your home. Just a few words of caution regarding unscrupulous agents... There are many real estate agents out there that will give you an overestimate of what you will actually net from your home at closing and will tell you anything they think you want to hear to get you to give them your home listing. There is also another very well known type of agent: in order to get your listing and sell it without incurring marketing costs and their time, they will purposely underestimate your home in order to make a very fast sale. Neither one of these agent types are being honest with you. You need to work with an agent on the sale of your home that is honest, has integrity, do what they are actually paid to do, and help you arrive at the right pricing for your home. We will strive to find a great agent for you, if you fill out our agent referral form. We Will Help You Get The Best Price For Your Home As Quickly As Possible! |