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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 agent 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 Agent 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 agent is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. A team of real estate agent 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 Agent 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.

Testimonials

Lorraina is the best agent I have ever worked with. She is always prompt with responses, always professional and courteous. She never seemed put out with all our questions and requests. She made our experience so easy and seamless. I would recommend her to anybody needing a realtor!

— Robin S.

Testimonials

It was a pleasure working with Lorraiana for both the sale and purchase of our homes. She was very responsive to our questions and easy to work with. She has great attention to detail and professionalism. She walked us through the buying and selling process and helped both transactions go smoothly.

— Swestoniv

Testimonials

Lorraina was amazing. Very communicative, kind, and patient. We had no idea what to do as this is our first home, but Lorraina told us everything we needed to know when we needed to know it without overwhelming. I would recommend her to anyone and will be holding onto her contact info for any future moves.

— Sarah M.

Testimonials

Lorraina was great. She was always available when we needed to call her and helped my wife and I navigate the crazy homebuying process as 1st time homeowners. I also really appreciated her honesty and advice for things to look out for when buying a home so that we could set ourselves up in the future, if we ever sell it. Most importantly, she helped us find the home for us. I would recommend her if you'r...

— Buyer

Testimonials

Lorraina was great to work with! She is very knowledgeable and guided us through the process of buying our first home. Always responsive and ready to answer any questions. We felt she truly cared about us finding the right home and I would highly recommend working with her.

— Buyer

Testimonials

We had a great experience with Lorraina. She was great in looking for a house and then helping with all the details to close. We are thrilled with the house we bought thanks to Lorraina.

— Buyer

Testimonials

Lorraina has been a great agent to work with. Attentive, efficient and genuinely cares about her clients. Our home buying process went as seamlessly as one could hope and she has been a wonderful support on the sale of our previous home.

— Buyer & Seller

Testimonials

Lorraina helped my daughter achieve her dream of buying her home in Argyle TX. All this is a transfer from California. Which means she had to deal with an out-of-state buyer. She took her step by step. Answered all the questions and so much more. Calm nerves, listen to thousands of questions. Took many pictures. Kept up continuously up to date on the building and buying procedures. Defiantly Lorraina was...

— Buyer

Testimonials

What can I say, when I first met Lorraina last year while visiting friends, she was (IS) so sweet and told me to contact her when I’m ready to move to Texas, I thought to myself “ya right, I’ll never move out of state” jokes on me, a year later I decided to make the move on what I thought I wanted vs what Lorraina showed but I could get and deserved and made my dream become a reality. She took me all aro...

— Buyer

Testimonials

When in a new town and geography and wanting to find a home, first one at that, in a crazy market, your realtor is a partner and stakeholder in the process, and Iam so glad we worked with Lorraine Moore. Her knowledge of the local markets, opportunities and right pricing in an aggressive market and beyond all the compassion that precedes everything is what makes one comfortable in this arduous process. I...

— Ajay E.

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Lorraina Moore is dedicated to helping you find your dream home and assisting with any selling needs you may have. Contact her today to start your home searching journey!