Archive for June, 2016

7 Things To Do First Before Hiring A Real Estate Agent

Wednesday, June 15th, 2016
Hiring a real estate agent

We’re retiring, selling and hiring a real estate agent. Here are 7 things we need to do first.

Congratulations to us! We’re retiring! We need to sell our home and downsize into a place that will cut our cost of living by about half each month, and we think we’ve found just the place. But there are a few things we must do before hiring a real estate agent.

Before hiring a real estate agent to sell our home, we need to do all we can to make their job easier. This will benefit us during the selling process. After all, we will be working very closely with this real estate agent on one of the biggest transactions of our whole lives. (Could You Be Losing Money On The Sale Of Your Brooklyn Home? discusses the importance of hiring a real estate agent who you can trust and who will represent you well).

Here are 7 things we need to do before hiring a real estate agent.

  1. Research comparable sales (comps) in the neighborhood to find the real value of our home. We have an idea of what our home should list for, but we must check comparable home values.

The local market conditions have changed since we bought our home over 15 years ago. The local market may or may not be in our favor today. Regardless of what we discover as we research today’s local real estate market, all our research will help us and our real estate agent. We need to be on the same page with a realistic listing price and strategy for selling our home.

Sellers can find neighborhood comps online. We can compare our home with other homes that have about the same square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and amenities. Our home’s condition must be considered and compared as well.

  1. Know what we have left to pay on our home loan. We need to gather all home loan documents and find out how much we have paid on our home and how much we still owe before hiring a real estate agent. Knowing the amount of what is left yet to pay on our home will help the agent determine a great strategy for selling it. If we are prepared with precise dollar amounts, our real estate agent will be able to get a better estimate of what we could make from the sale. Who knows? We may find that waiting things out might be better than listing at this time, but I doubt it. Look here to find the lowest mortgage rate available in your area.
  1. Before hiring a real estate agent, we must be prepared to tell them of liens or issues, if any, that are tied to our house. An unencumbered property is property that is not subject to any claims by creditors. For example, securities bought with cash instead of on margin and homes with mortgages paid off. That’s not always possible, but the more we can tell our real estate agent up front about liens or other issues that could possibly hold up a sale, the better off we’ll all be. It helps an agent to know about liens and property disputes so they can deal with them all before the house lists. For example:
  • Tax issues
  • Disputes you have had with contractors
  • Problems that could have allowed a creditor to put a lien on the house
  • Disputes with neighbors regarding property lines
  • If you’re selling a property that belonged to a deceased relative. (Make sure the title to the house is clean before contacting an agent).
  1. Clean our home thoroughly inside and out before hiring a real estate agent. We want to make a great first impression on our real estate agent to persuade them to market it for a higher value. We don’t want the agent we hire to make us feel they are giving away a dump. We want to clean it up as if we’re having someone of great importance over for dinner. And cleaning it up goes for the outside, too! Curb appeal is important, too. Our goal is to give the agent a mental picture of our home as a prize to be won. Whatever it takes to give the agent the impression that they have a prize to sell instead of a dump, we’ll do it.
  1. Wait to make home improvements. It’s best to wait to make home improvements until after a real estate agent has been hired. They know what is trending in the market and what buyers in our area are looking to pay top dollar for. If we tell the real estate agent how much money we have to work with, they’ll let us know which improvements will appeal to buyers and which ones will give the best ROI.
  1. Gather and disclose details of home improvements made during ownership. If a seller makes any upgrades during the course of ownership, details on those upgrades should be ready to give to the agent. Knowing about home additions, new carpet or flooring and so forth, will help the agent price our home effectively to market it well. And we don’t need to tell the agent what was spent on each home improvement. Just knowing of the improvement made, will help the agent know what value to add to our home.
  1. Print up a daily schedule of availability. Printing out our daily schedule will help the real estate agent recommend ideal times that our home can be shown to potential buyers. The key is to be ready at all times to accommodate showings. Yes, this is a bit inconvenient, but it will help our home sell more quickly.

Will you be hiring a real estate agent to sell your Brooklyn home? Get prepared and then contact Charles D’Alessandro at (718) 253-9600 ext. 206 or email [email protected]. With over 30 years of experience marketing Brooklyn homes, Charles D’Alessandro, your Brooklyn real estate agent with Fillmore Real Estate knows what it takes to get your home sold quickly.