Selling your home is not usually as simple as putting up a ‘FOR SALE’ sign at the front and hoping that prospective buyers will show interest. In fact, the process is one that is often quite daunting, and can involve a lot of costs and hard work to get a successful sale for the price that you want. The decisions that you make when selling your home can be the ruling finance factor as to whether you end up saving or losing hundreds or even thousands of dollars. See below for our handy step by step guide to successfully selling your home.
Determine the Price
Before you begin looking for prospective buyers or even property conveyancing Melbourne, it’s important that you first determine the price that you’d like for your home. If you are not sure how much your property is currently worth, it may be a good idea to employ the services of a surveyor or valuator who will be able to determine how much you should be expecting to get for your home. Over pricing can often discourage buyers, especially if there are similar houses in the area priced lower, whereas underpricing can also be a deterrent as it could signify that something is wrong with the property.
Who Sells Your Home
Although it is possible to sell your home by yourself, it is more common and less work to get a real estate agent to do the work for you. If you have the skill, time, experience, willingness and patience to do it yourself then you may be able to save yourself some money on the agent’s commission cost. However, if you decide to go with a real estate agent instead, it’s important that you do some research in order to make sure that you find the right one. Whenever possible, find a real estate agent who is skilled and experienced in selling similar properties in your area and has a good success rate. You are able to choose either one single agent or multiple agents to carry out the selling process.
Marketing Your Home
If you want to sell your home fast, it’s essential that you advertise it in the best light. Take photographs of all the rooms and make sure that they are presented well in order for your real estate agent to display them on their website and other forms of advertisement. When taking photos, it’s important that you keep in mind that prospective buyers will be interested more in your property than your possessions, so ensure that the rooms are spacious and uncluttered. You should also put a sign on your lawn so that passersby can see that it is for sale, and organizing an open house event is also a great way to attract more interest.
Hire a Conveyancing Lawyer
In order to sell your home, you will need to hire the services of a solicitor or conveyancing lawyer in order to carry out the process of legal transfer of property ownership. Although you will only need to instruct the conveyancing lawyer or solicitor to carry out the process after you have agreed to a sale, it’s a good idea to decide on a lawyer at least several days prior to the agreement in order to minimize delays.
Be Ready for Presentation
You should make it easy for potential buyers to get in touch with you and ensure that you have all the information to hand in order to answer any questions that they may have in an informative manner. If you have listed your phone or mobile phone number on the advertisements, it is a good idea to include in your voicemail that you have a property for sale, and ask any prospective buyers to leave a message. Ensure that you return all calls as quickly as possible, and if any prospective buyers visit the house, ensure that they can walk around freely whilst being nearby in order to answer any questions that may come up.
Once you have secured a buyer, you may need to be prepared for negotiation. You should have firmly decided on the lowest price that you will take by this point, as many buyers will try to get the price down whenever possible. Having this price in mind and sticking to it will ensure that you don’t get any less than you want for your home.
