8 Steps You Must Take Before Selling Your Home
The home-selling process is a pretty major undertaking, and before you even list your property, it's important that you take a few key steps first. Check these to-dos off your list beforehand, and you're well on your way to ensuring the most successful selling process possible!
What You Should Do Before Listing Your Property
1. Get Pre-Approved for a Home Loan
Imagine you've signed the contract on your current home, only to realize that you're not qualified to purchase another home. This issue may occur for a slew of reasons, including income changes or other major purchases, but if you stay prepared, you won't be shocked by any surprises down the road. Before you sell your current home, make sure you'll be able to find another place to go.
2. Check Your Mortgage Payment
Be sure to call your lender in order to learn what the total payoff for your current home mortgage is. This will help you when calculating a final budget for your new home.
3. Determine How Much the House Is Worth
A qualified real estate agent can help you with this. By determining your home's fair market value, it will enable you to set the right list price for your home, which will in turn help you sell your home quickly. This will also come in handy during the appraisal process.
4. Calculate Your Costs to Sell
There are a number of costs associated with the sale of your home, including:
- Real estate commission
- Advertising costs if you plan to sell by owner.
- Attorney and closing agent fees.
- Excise tax for the sale.
- Prorated costs for annual expenses, such as property taxes and home owner association fees
- And more
Of course, this figure will initially just be an estimate. But if you include the above items, it should be a fairly accurate estimate.
5. Determine Your Costs to Acquire a New Home
Buying a home isn't without its own expenses, like moving fees, loan costs, a down payment, title work, home inspections and more. Your lender should be able to help you in determining what this total figure will be.
6. Determine Your Estimated Profit
You can do this by subtracting your total mortgage payoff from your home's fair market value. Then, you'll want to subtract all the costs associated with the sale of your home. This should give you a good idea of the profit you'll make at closing.
7. Address Any Home Repairs Now
Yes, some home sellers would rather put their home on the market as is and hope that the buyers don't notice certain glaring issues. But that's probably not going to happen since most buyers hire inspectors—inspectors who will comb through every inch of your home looking for issues. Go ahead and get the hassle out of the way by addressing the major repair issues in your home before you even list it. Not only will doing so make your home more marketable, but it will also help speed up the home sale process.
8. Prepare Your Home for Showings
It's just about time to put that For Sale sign in the yard, so make sure your home is ready for buyers! In order to stage your home properly, you'll need to complete a thorough cleaning and decluttering of your home, add in some interior and exterior decor, and remove any personal items. Need some extra tips on what to improve? Just give us a call, and we'd be more than happy to do a walkthrough for you!
How Can We Assist With The Sale of Your Home?
For more useful tips on how you can have a successful experience on the Pittsburgh Suburbs housing market, be sure to contact Pittsburgh Joe, your dedicated real estate experts. We would love to assist you at every stage of the process!
