After all, selling a home is important business with legal contracts and significant money. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the process to ensure you price the home correctly, have it ready to sell, and make all the right decisions.
One of the first things is that if you are selling your home to purchase another home, just as you would hope with your buyer, you too want to talk to a lender about becoming pre-approved, not pre-qualified. With pre-qualification, the lender would advise you if you are a good candidate for home purchase. However, with pre-approval, you actually secure the loan so all you have to do is find a new home within the approved price range. Unfortunately, some people will sell one home and then find out they do not qualify for a new home. In other words, set yourself up for success from the beginning.
Next, you want to contact your mortgage company to determine the payoff of the loan. Keep in mind that the actual payoff would not be the same as the balance on your last month’s statement. The reason is that if you pay the mortgage loan early, interest would be adjusted so likely, the payoff amount would be a little less. However, in some cases, homeowners are charged a prepay penalty so again, you want to know the fact about the loan payoff, which will help you set the price.
After you know the payoff of the home, you need to determine its worth. This would be done by looking at your home’s fair market value. Typically, a real estate agent or broker would help you with this process but if you are planning to sell your home on your own, then you can research local homes for sell in your same geographic area and homes that are similar to yours. This way, you would have a much better idea of what to set the price at.
Hire a professional inspector ahead of time to fix any defects in the home. When a potential buyer makes an offer on your home, they will ask for an inspection to make sure there is nothing wrong with the home. By doing this on your own and ahead of time, you have the opportunity to fix anything wrong. This puts you in a much better selling position by putting a house on the market that is in excellent condition, as well as making you appear as an honest seller. You also want to remember that you will be required to pay out various fees so consider this when setting the price.
Next, you want to get the home ready to sell. This means making sure the landscaping is trimmed, the house has a nice paint job, cracks in the driveway are sealed, the home is uncluttered and clean, and any damaged flooring is replaced, and so on. The more appealing the home looks the quicker it will sell. After having everything done, you would then locate a good realtor to represent you to the public. Try your search online, just type something like”We Buy Houses Essex County, NJ” and you’ll get a lot of results to choose from. This person will handle the marketing for you, as well as provide you with tips on setting the price. In addition, your real estate agent may choose to host an open house, which is another great advertising tool.