Selling Your Home: A Guide to the Listing Process

Tue, 10/27/2020 - 2:07pm

Once you have interviewed and chosen your Realtor to list your home for sale, the next step is to get it on the market! Here are the steps you’ll encounter as you and your Realtor start the listing process.

Not all Realtors follow the same timeline, but this should give you a very good idea of what to expect once you’ve chosen the agent to sell your home.

These are the steps you’ll encounter listing with me in the Savannah, GA area.

Before the Appointment

  • Before we have our listing appointment, we will complete the necessary paperwork in order to list your home in the MLS.
  • I will also prepare a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) of your home based on preliminary information (square footage, location, age, etc.)

At the Listing Appointment

  1. What Are Your Circumstances?

    I start by talking with you about your motivation for selling your home. I’ll ask questions about what prompted you to want or need to sell your home. We’ll talk about where you are moving to and what your future plans are.

  2. Complete a Walk Through of Your Home

    At this stage we will talk about anything you need to do to make your home more marketable. We’ll discuss home staging and why it’s an important step in the selling process, any repairs that should be made, things you can do to boost your curb appeal, how to declutter your home to best prepare it for listing photos, and how to best prepare your home for millennial buyers.

  3. Talk About the Comparables Versus Your Home

    “Comps” are the homes that are most comparable to yours that have sold in the last 3-6 months. This helps us determine a realistic listing price for your home. This is a very important step in the process because there are consequences to pricing your home too high. We want to price it right from the start!

    To learn more about CMA’s, Kyle Hiscock wrote an article that gives the details of what a comparative market analysis is.

  4. Listing Packet

    Together will go through the listing presentation/packet and I’ll explain how my team and our systems work. We will cover the variety of marketing strategies we use to sell your home.

  5. Present and Explain the Listing Paperwork

    At this point we will determine the sale price of home, and explain the process of selling a home in Ga (especially if you are a first time home seller.)

    During this phase of the listing process, your Realtor should talk about the importance of pricing your home correctly and reasons why you might have to drop the list price. These are factors you should consider when pricing your home, via Bill Gassett.

    Again, it’s important to price your home correctly from the start!

  6. Signature!

    Once you have signed the paperwork (yes, it’s a lot!), I’ll put the FOR SALE sign in your yard, along with your key in a lock box on your door. Now it’s time to go back to the office and get the rest of the process started!

Back at the Office

  1. Photos

    The first phone call is to the Professional Photographer to schedule a time to take pictures of your home as soon as possible.

  2. Put Home Listing in MLS

    Initially, I will use just the front photo of the home. As soon as the professional photos are taken, I update your listing. 

  3. Schedule Agent Open House

    An agent open house is different than a seller open house in that an agent open house is an invitation for other real estate agents to view the property for sale and provide feedback and comments about your listing. Fellow Broker from NC, David O’Doherty, wrote this article about Why A Broker Open House Is Completely Different Than An Open House.

  4. Set Up Marketing

    For this part of the process, my team and I prepare all aspects of marketing your home for sale across the many channels of direct print, emails, social media, and more. We cover all of these details with you during the listing appointment.

    One other bonus you get when listing with my team is that your home will be featured on Home Connect TV!

There are many aspects of the home selling process, so it is extremely important to have a good relationship with your listing agent to set yourself up for success.