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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.
Nidhi R.

Nidhi R.

This was our first house and with our baby arriving soon, we had a hard deadline. After having searched for the home for a month without any luck, a friend highly recommended Nick Meyer. We have to say - it was an absolute plea...
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Talia M.

Talia M.

Nick was great helping us on the purchase of our home in San Jose, California. We knew that the market in the Silicon Valley was very competitive, so we were not sure if we were going to be able to buy a home in the area we wer...
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Aaron C.

Aaron C.

When I started the process of buying my first home, I was a bit overwhelmed, but Nick made things easier. He was quick to respond to my questions, never pressured me, and kept me informed about the next steps in the process. In...
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Shyam R.

Shyam R.

Nick was absolutely a pleasure to work with. He took to time to understand clearly what we looking for in a house. Nick helped refine our search and found the perfect house for us. Post offer, Nick early articulated the next st...
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Grace H.

Grace H.

During June 2018 we visited a friend at Vancouver WA and fall in love with that city. It was a perfect retirement place for us, so we bought a house in there during July 2018. Originally we were planning to sell our San Jose ho...
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Anshu J.

Anshu J.

Nick works on your behalf, around your requirements, constraints, schedules. Has fantastic local knowledge about the neighborhoods, schools, commute, everything that matters in decision making, and you can learn how to be punct...
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Rosie Y.

Rosie Y.

Nick was great in all aspects throughout the sales process. This being our first time selling, Nick helped us through each step offering great advice and services. Marketing was impeccable and just what we wanted to see. He was...
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Shashoni

Shashoni

Nick is extremely knowledgable and an expert bay area agent. He was highly professional and very easy to work with during our entire home search process. He not only explained and prepared us for the entire home buying process ...
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Niraj R.

Niraj R.

Nick was awesome in taking us through the home buying process, even though the purchase was tricky one. He recommended a very good loan officer and he was there for everything help asked for. We highly recommend Nick
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Priyanka V.

Priyanka V.

As a first time home buyer and new to bay area Nick really helped us choose a right house. Nick is very knowledgeable, patient and trustworthy real estate agent and understands the market really well. Nick was never pushy on pr...
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Ritu K.

Ritu K.

Home buying is a stressful experience in the bay area but Nick made the process a lot easier and fun. Every bit of advise and recommendation he gave was insightful. We always got a very prompt response from him on email/phone, ...
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Masato T.

Masato T.

I had a great experience working with Nicolas. I used him to sell a condo and also to buy a house. He is very knowledgeable, thorough, honest and provides excellent service. I wish I had found him sooner! His excellent advice a...
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Zulma C.

Zulma C.

Our family’s experience with Mike was wonderful! From beginning to end Mike was extremely knowledgeable and helpful. Mike is such a good hearted and genuine person. Through the entire process we felt like we were working with a...
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Moiz J.

Moiz J.

The wife and I were 1st time CA homebuyers at the peak of the market. Until we met Mike our search process had been picking random houses sprinkled throughout the bay and hoping we'd stumble across something that we liked in ou...
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Michael H.

Michael H.

2020 started with big plans to sell our home in Patterson Ranch, Fremont and relocate our family to Southern California. The market started off the year very hot with several listings in our community going pending within a wee...
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Tony G.

Tony G.

Mike is a rock star of Reel Estate. Well versed in all aspects of local trends and prices, he works for you to get you the best price, both when selling and buying. Thank you Mike!
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Jacquelynn J.

Jacquelynn J.

She worked as hard at selling our house as I would myself. I'm sure a lot of our home sale was impacted by market conditions, but she was able to get us more than 30K over asking price. We relocated and she handled everything f...
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Seller

Seller

Terri was very helpful and made things easy from start to finish. Her knowledge and experience enabled us to get more than expected from our home sale, and made the entire process smooth and stress free. Highly recommended!
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Jean

Jean

Terri made the entire process easy, smooth and quick. She is a true professional and very knowledgeable and talented! I couldn’t ask for a better experience. She’s the best! Thank you Terri and your entire team!
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J. Munoz

J. Munoz

We had a great experience selling our home with Terri and her team, This was our first sale and we are extremely satisfied. Terri is very knowledgeable and uses a data driven approach to maximize the value of the home. She prov...
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