When it comes time to sell your home, there are three very important aspects of the home selling process that must be considered. Condition, price, and marketing are key issues that need consideration before you place your home on the market for sale. For additional information on what happens throughout the home selling process, see the section below on The role a Realtor plays in the home selling process.

Condition
The condition of your home is very important to obtain the best possible price and help sell your home as quickly as possible. Your Realtor can help you to determine the factors that may come into play in the sale of your home. The following are just some of the possible deterrents that may concern a buyer who is considering purchasing your home.

• Clean Carpets/New Carpets: Having clean carpets throughout your home is very important to potential buyers. It may even be necessary to replace some carpet. If buyers need to replace the carpets in a home they are purchasing, they will often discount the offer price far more than it would have cost to replace the carpets prior to listing the property for sale.
• Remove Pet Odors: Pet odors in a home’s carpet or around litter boxes can turn a buyer right around and send them back out the door they came in. Your Realtor can provide you with suggestions or names of companies that can help remove unwanted odors.
• Updating door knobs & cabinet hardware: Something as simple as removing and replacing dated or damaged door knobs or cabinet hardware can give your home a fresh look.
• Wall coverings and paint: Every buyer’s tastes are different and their decision to buy one home over another could be due to wall coverings or paint colors. Homes decorated in neutral colors tend to attract the greatest number of buyers.
• Furnace & mechanicals: The condition and age of the furnace and other mechanicals such as the water heater, etc. can be a factor in the sale of a home. When it comes to major issues such as these, it is best to discuss with your Realtor how your particular situation may affect the sale of your home before making any decisions about repair or replacement.

• Landscaping: Landscaping around a home including neatly trimmed bushes, well maintained rock or wood chip areas, retaining walls, etc. can all enhance the sale of a home.
• Exterior Paint: Unusual color combinations or colors uncharacteristic of the neighborhood can have a negative impact on the sale of a home. At the same time, cracked and chipping paint can cause a home to look "run down".
• Age of Roofing Material & Siding: Newer roofing material and siding that is in good condition or is a newer style can be a positive selling point on a home. At the same time, hail and wind damage that has not been repaired can be a negative for some buyers.
• Lawn Maintenance: Keeping your lawn neat and well trimmed can be an enormous advantage when selling your home. Keeping dandelions and other weeds under control as well as keeping your lawn cut to a healthy looking length is always beneficial.

The condition of your home at the time of sale is ultimately your responsibility. Your Realtor will be happy to give you suggestions as to what changes may help or hinder the sale of your home. It may sometimes be beneficial for you to make certain changes to your home. Other times it may make more sense to lower the asking price or offer the buyer a dollar allowance for updates and repairs. No matter what your particular situation, you and your Realtor will be able to best decide together what changes if any need to be made.

Price
When it comes time to price your home, the decision is yours to make with help from statistics and suggestions about the current market that your Realtor can provide you. Without this information, you may list your home for too little money and short yourself. On the other hand, if you list your home for too much money, you risk having your home sit on the market for long periods of time. Overpricing usually results in buyers dismissing your property as a possibility and your home may not sell. This is where your Realtor is invaluable. They will provide you with market information, statistics, and their suggestions based on experience to help you properly price your home. The price that the current market will bare is truly what sets the price of any home.

What are the risks of pricing my home too high?
Whenever a home is priced too high, numerous things happen. Buyers who are actively searching for their next home will compare your property to others they have seen in your area. If you have your home overpriced, they will quickly recognize that other homes in the area are a better value and will dismiss your property as an option.

So why not start high and lower the price later if my home doesn’t sell?
The temptation is often to initially try to sell your home higher than what the market is telling you. You may be thinking that if you price your property high, buyer’s can always offer you a lower price. There are many problems with this.

When conducting a home search for their clients, Realtors will set the maximum price at the dollar amount the buyer’s lender has qualified them for. There could be several buyers in your area that qualify for the price range that the market has dictated your home should be worth but because your home was priced higher than that amount, those buyers may never find out about your home. If one of those same buyers does find out about your property, they will more than likely avoid it after finding out the price. They will feel that it is not worth their time to try to negotiate because if the home is priced unreasonably high, the buyer will more than likely assume that offering a lower amount will be a waste of time and won’t get them anywhere. They will move on to the properties that they know are in their price range.

Lowering the price after initially pricing the home high, can also prove to be risky. The buyers that were actively looking at the time you placed your home on the market have all more than likely made offers on other homes. New buyers that have come into the market after you reduced the price will often see that your home has been on the market for a while and wonder why it hasn’t been purchased yet. They will assume something might be wrong with the home when in reality, the home simply did not sell because of pricing. As time goes by, buyers who want to make an offer may start offering less than what the market is saying your home is worth. In the end, overpricing can actually wind up getting you less money than if the home would have been priced at a level that the market supported from the start.

As you can see, pricing your home correctly when you initially list your home can be crucial to obtaining the maximum dollar amount for your home.

Marketing
The marketing aspect of your home sale is the job of your Realtor. Your Realtor may ask you to be involved with small jobs such as letting them know when the brochure box on your yard sign is almost empty. Overall, your Realtor will handle the marketing of your home and save you time, money, and energy on promoting your home to buyers and other agents.

Marketing is a crucial element to the success of the sale of your home. You will want to have your Realtor sit down and present his marketing plan to you before you place your home on the market. He will go through a detailed explanation of each activity he plans to use to help expose your home to potential buyers and other agents.

Your Realtor will often tailor their marketing activities to your specific needs. It is a good idea to view your Realtor’s Marketing Activities section on their web site to get an overview of how they will be marketing your property. That way, you will be able to come to your Realtor’s presentation prepared with any questions you may have or suggestions about how you would like to see your property actively marketed.

What Role does a Realtor Play in the Home Selling Process?
Your Realtor is your resource for all of your real estate needs. The role he plays in selling your home was touched on in the "Selling Your Home" section above. Here is a run down of several of the many services your Realtor will provide to you in the home selling process:

• Can help you with suggestions on improving the condition of your home if necessary.
• Will provide market information, statistics, and suggestions for pricing your home.
• Will use numerous Marketing Activities to actively promote the sale of your property.
• Will assist you with staging your home for the best possible presentation to potential buyers.
• Will promote your property to potential buyers in your area year round and has constant contact with those buyers. This allows your Realtor to tell those buyers about your home as soon as it comes on the market.
• Will network with other agents who may have a buyer for your property.
• Will help to negotiate the best price and look out for your best interests throughout the transaction.
• Can help you locate and purchase your next home and coordinate closing dates to ensure a smooth transition from one home to the next.
• Can assist with finding a reputable title company to close your transaction.
• Will work with your title company as well as the buyer’s title company and lender from the time a purchase agreement is accepted up until closing to assist with obtaining all required documentation so that you will be assured of a smooth and worry free transaction.
• Will attend closing with you to actively assist and support you with any questions you may have as you finalize the sale of your home.
• Can assist you with lining up moving companies, etc. and is available to you should you have questions long after you have moved into your new home.