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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 REALTOR® once you choose one so he or she 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 real estate agent is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. An 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

I 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. My 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 agent.

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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. I 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 REALTOR® 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.

Seller
Nai S.
Buyer
Buyer
Buyer & Seller
Altaf S.
Buyer & Seller
Buyer & Seller
Arthur R.
Linda S.
Buyer | Seller
Buyer & Seller
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

From the first meeting to after selling the home, I feel like I’ve made a friend. Mark understood my urgency in listing and selling my home and he put himself in my shoes and got a deal better than what I hoped for. Listen to him and let him do his job and get out of the way. I will use him in the very near future again! Thanks Mark!

— Seller

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

She is on top of her game when it comes to finding the right house for your needs and always keeps you informed of what’s going on.

— Nai S.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

As this was our first time purchasing a home, we didn’t have that much experience. Having said that, Darla was an absolute breath of fresh air. She made the process seamless, fun, and enjoyable. We were able to contact her with any questions and she would respond in a timely manner. No Stone was left unturned. We would highly recommend her to any friends and family. Thank you, Darla! You are the best!

— Buyer

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Darla has facilitated two purchases for us. One was a piece of property that was a cash sale. Everything went smoothly and the transaction was completed quickly. The second was the purchase of a rental property. Darla had a good knowledge of the areas that we were interested in. Darla listened to our needs, some that even we were unaware of, and showed us listings that were appropriate until we found jus...

— Buyer

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Mark Daya is amazing!!!! We had to sell our home and buy a larger home and he was able to get us more than our asking price in our previous home and negotiate to our favor for our new home. Our home was listed and went into pending in less than 24 hours! He has a great communication cadence and negotiated the many changes that occurred in the buying/selling process with ease. Although very professional, ...

— Buyer & Seller

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Recently I bought a home in Rancho Cordova, CA and Fellicia Howard worked for me as a buyer agent as well as mortgage consultant. She did a wonderful job. She did all both sides at a time so efficiently, diligently, quickly and nicely. I highly recommend her in future buying homes. Good Luck. Thanks.

— Altaf S.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

The circumstances of the sale of my home and purchase of my new home seemed impossible! We had a few almost unreasonable deadlines put in place by the seller of the dream home we very much wanted to buy in conjunction with an out-of-country vacation we were taking a few weeks before the projected closing date. Basically every Realtor’s® nightmare. Not only did Mark deliver, but he handled some things in ...

— Buyer & Seller

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Buying and selling a home are two of the most stressful things to go through, and Darla made both of these simple and seamless for us! Her marketing is state of the art and helped our house to stand part from others on the market – selling in only 5 days! Darla was personable, pressure-free, and always looked out for our best interest. It felt like she was part of the family – she even jumped in to take ...

— Buyer & Seller

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Fellicia deserves full credit for a quick, efficient, and stress-free purchase of my newly-purchased home! I met her by chance when looking at a house for sale and I had a sense she was sincere, so I immediately started working with her. It turned out to be a good choice. She made all steps in the process very easy, while keeping me very well informed. From pre-qualification, offer and acceptance, obtain...

— Arthur R.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Best decision working with Mark and his team at Sac Platinum. He helped us sell our house and got us into another house with everything syncing together for a smooth transition. We did our loan with his team as well and had a great experience. Excellent response time day or night and always helped us answer all our concerns along the way. A true man of his words and will help you iron out any kinks along...

— Linda S.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

SACPLATINUM REALTY has been absolutely amazing with getting our home sold. Mark and his team did a bang up job on marketing, staging and photography. The attention he put on scheduling and hosting the weekly open house was spot on. Most importantly for me was Mark’s honesty and transparency. It was a complete job and piece of mind to work with Mark and the SACPLATINUM Team. Thank you Mark!!!

— Buyer | Seller

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

My husband and I met Mark about three years ago, at an open house, and decided almost immediately we were going to purchase our very first home through him. We had such an amazing experience that I recommended him to many of my friends, and they too purchased through him. I knew back then when we sold our home and purchased our second home we were again going to go through Mark; and let me tell you, we w...

— Buyer & Seller

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