Sellers Guide

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

Colleen H.

Colleen H.

Mason helped good friends buy and sell here in the past. We were very impressed and asked for his help selling a Las Vegas rental property. Mason provided prompt, timely, and expert service and advice specific to our 1031 excha...
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Renaye B.

Renaye B.

Stan Hicks is amazing! He walked us (my father and I) through buying a new house and renovating it before we moved in. He is definitely a "one-stop shop". He was very kind and understanding through all of our questions and conc...
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Seller

Seller

Hicks and Richburg were great to work with. Knowledgeable, understanding, and patient in every aspect of selling our home! Very responsive to the many questions we had. I would highly recommend him if you are looking to buy or ...
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Seller

Seller

Mason was always so responsive to any questions or concerns we had. He is knowledgeable and very professional. It was a pleasure doing business with Mason and I know we will not go to anyone else for any other real estate need ...
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Seller

Seller

I would never work with another realtor after working with Stan and Mason. They were professional, incredibly knowledgeable, and responsive to all of my questions. They walked me through every step of the process. They are awes...
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Josh C.

Josh C.

We had Mason Richburg and he was the best! Really enjoyed the experience and cannot beat the Knowledge. He always had a thorough market search and even in the tough market lead us to the most successful outcome.
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Buyer

Buyer

Stan is the best man to have when you working through the real estate process. He went way above and beyond to make the transaction smooth moving from one state to another into our new home.
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Buyer

Buyer

We had the pleasure of having Mason Richburg as our agent during the process of buying our first home. He was first class from beginning to end and made the process very easy.
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Angie P.

Angie P.

Stan went way beyond what we expected. He was always available to us and handled difficult situations professionally. He guided us step by step until the deal was completed.
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Lenny

Lenny

Stan Hicks did an outstanding job for us. I would never use any other realtor. He was very patient, knowledgeable, and understanding. Great person.
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Hicks and Richsburg has an extraordinary team that is highly capable of working with a wide variety of customers be it any scale or scope. They understand the market, they understand the industry, they are connected, and most of all they care.

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