SELLER'S GUIDE

A Step-by-Step First Time Seller's Guide

Putting your home on the market can be a stressful process, especially when you don’t know what to expect. Fortunately, with the help of an experienced agent and this easy to follow guide, you can smoothly complete the process. Following these steps will help you prepare so you can get organized and sell your home for the best price possible.​​​​​​​

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Step 1: Understand Why You're Selling

What do you want to accomplish with the sale of your home? Do you want to make a certain amount of money that you can put toward a larger or nicer home? Do you need to sell it as soon as possible to facilitate a move to a new city or area? Once you understand your needs, you can better craft your offer. For example, if you need to sell quickly, you might want to price your home lower than if your goal is to make a certain profit margin. Make sure you convey these needs to your Realtor® once you choose one so he or she can adjust your selling price accordingly.

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Step 2: Determine Selling Price

Knowing how to price your home is one of the most important parts of the selling process. When you set a fair price in the beginning, you’ll get the most interest from other real estate agents and prospective buyers. Overpricing your home could lead to reduced interest, and underpricing leads to receiving less than what your home is worth. Working with a real estate agent is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. An agent with experience can determine what other comparable homes are selling for, evaluate the current market, and may even suggest a home appraisal.

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Step 3: Start Preparations

If you’ve kept your home in showroom condition since you’ve lived in it, you’re in the minority of homeowners. Once you price your home, it’s time to start getting it ready to be shown to potential buyers. This includes getting rid of clutter, depersonalizing the space so that buyers can envision themselves in the space, making any small repairs, and doing a deep clean to make sure your home is in pristine condition.

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Step 4: Develop a Marketing Strategy

I will develop a marketing strategy that is perfect for advertising your home. This involves listing the home and then driving the right people to that listing through social media campaigns, agent-to-agent referrals, traditional media, or SEO advertising. My team creates a marketing campaign that aims to get the most possible traffic to your listing in the first three weeks after becoming a client.

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Step 5: Evaluate Offers

Receiving an offer is an exciting part of the process, but it doesn’t mean the journey is over. We will evaluate each offer and make sure the party making the offer is prequalified or pre-approved by a mortgage lender and that their offer is acceptable to you. If the offer is too low, you can make a counter-offer or offer other ways to bridge the gap, such as covering some or all of the closing costs, making repairs, adjusting the move-in date, or leaving some appliances or fixtures for the new buyer.

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Step 6: Accept an Offer

Once we deem the offer is acceptable, we will review the proposed contract to make sure it’s all in order and includes the necessary components such as deposit amount, down payment, financing, inspection rights and repair allowances, contingencies, settlement date, and a list of fees and who will pay them. When both parties have agreed to the term, a final contract will be prepared by your agent.

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Step 7: Get Ready to Close

You have accepted an offer and are now very close to the end of your selling journey. But first, you and the buyer must make a list of what needs to be done before closing. In some cases, your home may need to be formally inspected, surveyed, and appraised. In other cases, major or minor repairs will need to be made before the house can close. I will head up efforts to develop and execute this list, get each action item paid for by the correct party, and make sure everything is in order by the closing date. A few days before the closing date, we will call the company closing the transaction to make sure everything is ready to go. If you haven’t done so already, you also need to make arrangements to move out of the home so the new buyer can take possession.

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Step 8: Close

You’ve reached the last step in the seller’s process. When you close on a home you are selling, you are legally transferring ownership of the property to the new buyer. We will meet with the company closing the transaction to sign the final paperwork and go over any issues that have not yet been taken care of. During this time, you can also make plans with your Realtor® to handle final details such as canceling utilities, cable, and lawn or trash services, changing the name on accounts that the new owner is retaining and ensuring the new owner has instructions for all appliances that will remain in the home.

Congratulations!

Once you have sold your home, you’re free to take the next step on your journey. Whether this is relocating to a new city, moving into a larger home, or downsizing and enjoying your life as empty-nesters, knowing all your selling responsibilities have been taken care of will help you achieve peace of mind for your new path.

Our Testimonials

Tonia McKenzie

Tonia McKenzie

I cannot say enough wonderful things about Lisa. She rescued us from another realtor that was not doing the job we needed from day one. She helped us stage our house appropriately. She was in constant communication with us abou...
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Shannon and Dan Vu

Shannon and Dan Vu

Lisa is AMAZING!!! We met Lisa a little over a year ago. Most would say we met by chance but we believe our paths were meant to cross. We were new to the area and renting a home, so planning ahead we started looking at houses t...
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Christina McIver

Christina McIver

Lisa Little was amazing to work with! She asked us all the right questions and listened to us when we expressed what we wanted. She introduced us to neighborhoods that met our needs and was able to help us expand our search whi...
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Peggy & Sam Hopwood

Peggy & Sam Hopwood

Lisa Little of Compass Realty was great working with to sell our home. Lisa was always there to answer my questions and to offer advice. Lisa's marketing background was evident as she came up with numerous ways to present my ho...
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Leslie

Leslie

Very professional and great person to work with. She sold my home with no hiccups. I also bought my home with Lisa, everything went smooth. Would recommend Lisa to all buyers and sellers.
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Jae D.

Jae D.

Lisa is so helpful and knowledgable. We moved from out of state and she made the process so much easier. She always responded to my texts and emails promptly. When we decide to move again and sell this house we will be using Lisa!
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Mikhael R.

Mikhael R.

Lisa helped my wife and I sell our old home and buy our new dream home. Lisa was an absolute delight to work with throughout the whole process. Her knowledge of the area and industry were extremely helpful and made everything f...
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Kelly D.

Kelly D.

Lisa recently helped us with purchasing our new home. We've been through a number of real estate transactions in the last 20 years and I can unequivocally say that Lisa was the best Realtor® we've worked with yet. She was proac...
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Chris M.

Chris M.

We were recommended to Lisa by a friend and to say the least she was amazing. She truly made our switch from California a less stressful experience. Lisa listened to our needs and found us the perfect place that matched our req...
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Nicki B.

Nicki B.

Lisa is fantastic to work with! Very timely in her responses, always with a smile, and very professional. She has a great eye for staging, working well with the space presented to her, and even working in conjunction with furni...
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Daniel C.

Daniel C.

Lisa was absolutely amazing through the entire process of selling our home. Her dedication to getting our home on the market in a timely manner and with the appropriate information helped us sell our house in only 6 days! She a...
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Christian N.

Christian N.

Lisa helped make our cross country relocation go so smoothly. She handled everything for us expertly and efficiently. She was able to close our escrow so quickly that we were able to move in a mere week after we arrived. She wa...
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Marcie P.

Marcie P.

I'm a top producing residential Realtor® in the Silicon Valley, where homes sell in less than a week, and Realtors® need the best team available to make it happen quickly. Lisa was my go to stager until she defected to Texas, a...
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