• Reasons to Sell Our goal is to help you make the right decision about whether to sell your house. When you do, we want to make sure that you get the best possible price. People's reasons for wanting to sell their houses are almost as varied as the houses themselves.

• Selling in a Strong Market While your personal and financial situation is clearly an important factor in deciding whether and when to sell your house, the strength of your local housing market may also influence your decision.

• Selling in a Depressed Market When deciding whether to sell in a depressed market, consider the factors discussed in the following sections. Nobody likes to lose money and here are important options to consider. 

Getting Financially Organized

• Trading Up  Before you set out to trade in your current house for a better one, you should take a good look at your overall budget and what costs will increase with your new home. 

• Trading Down  Now may be the time for you to trade down -- sell your current house and either buy a less expensive home or become a renter. This covers the tax benefits, emotional consideration and determining whether you should see outside financial advice. 

Preparing to Sell

• Timing Your Sale Choosing the time of year to put your house on the market is an important decision. You can use the predictability of these cycles to your advantage

• Handling Presale Preparation  If you make the right improvements when fixing up your property, you increase the odds of selling it quickly for top dollar. Make the wrong changes and you may waste the time and money you spent. 

• Key Exterior Improvements Buyers begin forming their opinion of your house long before they go inside. Curb appeal, the external attractiveness of your property is critically important. Here are some tried-and-true ways to enhance your house's curb appeal. 

• Key Interior Improvements Curb appeal draws buyers into your house. But appealing interiors makethe sale. Little things you do generally give the biggest increase in value. Concentrate on the following list of essential improvements.

• Pre-marketing Property Inspection  Prudent purchasers will have your property thoroughly inspected before they buy it. The best defense is a good offense. Discover everything wrong with your house before putting it on the market. 

• Staging a House Staging a house goes way beyond your efforts to make it look nifty before having friends over for a dinner party. Here are some staging tips that you can use to increase your house's emotional appeal: more 

Your Real Estate Team

• The Team and the Players House selling is a team sport. After you assemble a winning team, your players should give you solid advice so you can make great decisions. Here's an overview of the possible players on your team. 

• The Perfect Listing Agent A good agent can be the foundation of your real estate team, and their negotiating skills and knowledge of property values can add 5 to 10 percent to your house's sale price. Here are ways to recognize the attributes of the best listing agents.

• Understanding Agency Real estate agents can represents sellers or buyers, and agency is the legal definition of that relationship. This covers the basics of single agency as well as some examples of dual agency

• Selecting an Agent Finding a great agent is worth your time and this provides a four-step process to identifying and evaluating one that's right to list, price and market your house. It includes interview checklists and questions for references.

• Using a Lawyer The real estate purchase agreement you sign is a legally binding contract between you and the buyer. This covers evaluating and choosing among lawyers as well as how to work well with yours. more 

• Who is the Broker When you select an agent, your agent's broker is part of the package and supervises the transaction. If serious issues arise during the transaction, brokers are often the invisible grease in problematic transactions.

• Other Key Advisors This section covers the other important possible members of your team: house inspectors, the closing officer, financial advisors and tax advisors. 

Listing Contracts and Commissions

• Listings Contract Basics A listing contract is a personal service contract between you and a licensed real estate broker. This gives an overview of the types of listingagreements and explains your listing contract obligations. 

• Exclusive Listings This section explains in detail the two types of exclusive listings -- Exclusive Right to Sell and Exclusive Agency. The former is the most widely used in the U.S. and here's why it's popular with both sellers and brokers. 

• Open Listings An open listing is a non-exclusive authorization for brokers to find a buyer for your property. You're obligated to pay a commission to the first broker who fulfills some basic conditions, and it's generally much less effective than an exclusive.

• Commission Basics In the following list, we try to answer every question you've ever had about commissions but were too embarrassed to ask: who pays, how they're set and whether they're negotiable.

• Seller Disclosure Statements  The days of 'buyer beware' are gone forever. Consumer protection laws enacted over the last couple of decades have caused this to be the era of 'let seller beware.' This covers what information you should and must disclose as well as why. 

Marketing Your Home

• Pricing Methods You can ask any price you want for your house. But your house won't sell until you find a buyer who agrees that it's worth the price you're willing to accept. This covers the wrong and the right way to go about pricing a house.

• Using Pricing Incentives When sellers far outnumber buyers, you'll probably have to offer buyers additional enticements to make a deal. The key is to use incentives that help put a sale together rather than fancy gimmicks that besmirch your property. 

• Overpricing Issues If nothing is physically wrong with their property, when most houseswon't sell the predicament is usually due to overpricing camouflaged by denial. Here are three factors all buyers consider that should put things into perspective. 

• Advertising That Works The key to selling your house for top dollar is to implement an ad campaign to generate spirited buyer competition for your property. The following sections describe the most effective types of advertising. 

• Open Houses One extremely effective way to get the word out about your house is to schedule a brokers' open -- a special open house exclusively for local real estate agents. Public open houses and some tips on how to handle them are also covered in this section. 

• Showing Your House If you list your house with a real estate agent, they will handle the actual buyer and broker showings for you. Your job is simple -- make sure that the property is staged to show well and make yourself scarce while the property is being shown. 

• Appraiser's Inspection  If the buyer's loan isn't approved because the appraiser thinks that your property isn't worth the amount the buyer is willing to pay for it, your deal falls through. Here are two steps to prevent an appraiser from undervaluing your house.

 

Negotiating

• Basic Rules of Negotiating If you follow these basic negotiating guidelines, your deal will practically take care of itself. This explains why you should conduct all negotiations face-to-face, get everything in writing, and make sure that deadlines are met. 

• Mastering Your Feelings House sales are usually emotional roller-coaster rides for everyone involved. This discusses how to put emotions in their place as well as how agents can help you to gain detachment through the house selling process.

• Receiving an Offer to Purchase  When you evaluate the offers you receive, here is a list of things you should check for. This covers the characteristics of a good offer and discusses how it turns the offer into a ratified contract. 

• Dealing with Contingencies A contingency gives buyers the right to pull out of the deal if some specific future event, such as getting a mortgage, fails to materialize. This explains the common contingencies and how you manage them.

• Selecting the Best Offer If you have multiple offers on your hands, you earn the right to dictate favorable terms and conditions of sale for yourself. This section explains how to evaluate offers and their buyers and to make the best choice among them. 

• Making a Counter Offer In addition to an unsatisfactory price, if an offer contains unreasonable contingencies, you use a counter offer to propose that the buyer remove them. Here's what you need to understand about the process in order to stay focused on your goals. 

Closing the Deal

• Estimated Closing Statement You should request an estimated closing statement as soon as  possible. This approximation should give a rough idea about the amountof money you may need to spend on your next home. 

• Final Closing Statement From an accounting standpoint, however, the most precious piece of paper is the final closing statement. It records all the money related to your transaction either as credits or debits. 

• Possession Options  The date the buyers actually take possession of your house and move into it depends on the terms of your contract. This covers your options as well as recommends the least risky approach to handing over your house. 

• Final Inspections and Risks If you vacate your house prior to the close, you should not to let buyers start fixing the house up before closing. This explains final verification of condition and why to be possessive about your house until the transaction is complete.

• Seller's Remorse Seller's remorse is a stupendously strong conviction on your part that you're about to sell your house for less than it's really worth. When you're in the cruel grip of seller's remorse, facts take a back seat to perceptions 

After You Sell

• Taxes and Profits Profit is the difference between the price you pay to buy a home and the amount you receive when you sell it, less any capital improvements. There are also some great tax benefits you'll receive when you sell your house. 

• Required Tax Filings This section covers the elements of filling out and filing your taxes after selling your house, including details on how to calculate your gains.

• Exclusion and Taxable Gains Thanks to the new capital gains rules figuring out how much, if any, of that gain is taxable is quite simple. This explains in further detail capital gains and the exclusion of certain housing sale profits

• Keeping Documentation At the closing for your property's sale, you will be buried in an avalanche of paperwork. But you've got to keep copies of all those papers for the IRS and you should begin tracking proof of improvements and prior purchases. 

• Post-transaction Finances  If you sell your house and don't immediately buy another one, you need to find a safe place to park your proceeds. Here are some personal finance thoughts and options explaining how to temporarily invest your cash. 

• Your Next Home Selling your house and buying another takes a great deal of your time and money. So, when you choose your next home, choose carefully. This covers pulling together your next down payment as well as renting options.

• Change Your Address  You don't want to rack up late payment fees, interest charges, anddamage to your credit report. And you don't want to lose track of any of your investment accounts, either. Don't delay informing all parties you know of your change of address.
  

Contact Me

(215) 641-2405