Preparation
Placing your home on the market requires objectivity and potentially significant preparation. As your chosen real estate professional, I will guide you through the preparation process to help you:
- Appreciate the impression your home will make on potential buyers
- Define improvements that you can undertake to sell your home faster and at the best possible price
- Outline suggested interior and exterior preparations for cleaning, repair and organization
- De-clutter and depersonalize your space to achieve the broadest appeal
- Arrange furniture to make rooms appear as spacious as possible
- Connect to professionals for preparation assistance such as painters, cleaners, contractors, carpenters, repair people, home stagers and more
- Create a mood ideal for showcasing your home such as playing relaxing background music, lighting a fire, adding plants and flowers, maximizing lighting and fine-tuning the temperature
Pricing
Determining the right asking price is the most critical factor to the success of your home sale. As your chosen real estate professional, I will:
- Help you understand current market conditions and how they will impact your home’s asking price
- Prepare a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) to give you an appreciation of what comparable homes in your area have recently sold for, or are competing against
- Assist you in understanding the marketability of your home’s location, size, style and condition
- Explain how pricing appropriate to market value will help make your home more marketable, exposing it to more qualified buyers while generating the best offers
- Clarify the importance of capitalizing on the early activity associated with new listings by pricing your home appropriately when it first goes on the market
- Help to create value and future negotiating power through chattel inclusions and exclusions
- Work with you to develop a pricing strategy and determine an asking price that will sell your home in the shortest amount of time at the best possible price
Listing
Entering into a Listing Agreement is the first formal step in marketing your home to prospective buyers. As your chosen real estate professional, I will:
- Explain the Listing Agreement document, a contract that commits Royal LePage to market your home for a specified period of time in exchange for a marketing fee or commission, paid upon successful closing of your home sale
- Discuss the marketing fee and the specific value you will receive in exchange for that fee
- Outline the details of the agreement including the asking price, a description of the property, inclusions and exclusions, annual property taxes and any rights of way, easements, liens, or charges against the property
- Request any required supporting documents such as a property survey, property tax receipts, deed or title search documentation
- Ask you to authorize your mortgage lender to verify your current mortgage details, where applicable
- Request other documentation such as expenses related to heating, electrical and water consumption as well as receipts for any home improvements to assist your home sale
Marketing
A comprehensive marketing plan, customized to your home, will give it maximum exposure and the attention it deserves. As your chosen real estate professional, I will:
- Prepare a personalized marketing plan containing all activities intended to market your property to prospective buyers and their real estate representatives
- Place your home on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®), making is accessible to all real estate professionals and their clients, unless you choose to list your home exclusively with Royal LePage
- Provide national exposure for your home by placing it on multiple websites — some of which are the most visited real estate websites in Canada and the US
- Provide local exposure for your home with a lawn sign, open houses, newspaper and other print advertising
- Showcase your property through print and web based marketing tools which may include property feature sheets and brochures, ‘Just Listed’ flyers and postcards, virtual slide shows, web commercials and email marketing
- Network with other real estate professionals and my database of clients where applicable, to provide incremental exposure for your home
Negotiating
Upon receipt of an offer to purchase, there are several considerations and negotiating nuances to understand before you provide acceptance. As your chosen real estate professional, I will:
- Clarify all elements of the offer including price, deposit, financial terms, inclusions and exclusions, the closing or possession date and any conditions that apply
- Help determine an appropriate response within the time frame required, either accepting or rejecting the offer, or developing a counter-offer
- Set a course of action for any counter offer terms such as adjusting the offer price, inclusions and exclusions, the closing date, or removing conditions
- Manage all offers and any counter offers, negotiating to get you the best possible deal
- Ensure you understand and agree to all of the offer terms before you provide acceptance
Closing
Your home sale is completed on closing day when ownership is officially transferred to the buyer. As closing day approaches, there are a number of tasks to complete:
- Hire a legal professional to represent your interests and manage closing documentation
- Satisfy any conditions you may be subject to in the offer
- Arrange for your self move requirements or obtain estimates from reputable moving companies and book as far in advance as possible
- Contact utilities to have meters read on closing day and coordinate cancellations, transfers and change-of-address notifications for medical,
- Financial and contracted services, licenses, subscriptions, memberships and personal mail
- Organize the connection of services and utilities at your new home
- Coordinate with your lawyer the receipt of compensations for prepaid
- Utility expenses and the payment of real estate and legal fees from the proceeds of the sale
- Meet with your lawyer to sign required closing documentation to discharge any mortgages, transfer the deed and to provide the keys for the buyer