Location: Home » Selling a Home

At Parker Realty, we know how stressful it can be to sell the place that you call your home. With buyers and agents coming over to look at the house, home inspections, and appraisals, this can be quite an emotional process, which is why we will do everything we can to guarantee that we sell your home sold at the highest price possible, with the least amount of hassle, and with the greatest degree of security for you and your family.

Are you thinking of selling soon? Call us to discuss why now is a good time to sell.

Before you begin the process of selling your home, it may help to read this article to help educate your self about the steps in selling a home. There are many more details involved, and if you have any more questions, please feel free to give us a call.

If you are thinking of selling a home, the first step is to set up an appointment with a Realtor so that we can walk through the house with you. During this appointment, our main objective is to gather as much information that we can about your home, so that we can prepare a report of other, similar homes in your area in order to determine market conditions specific to your house.

There are many property owners who want to sell a home and buy a different home, and people are not sure how to coordinate this process. There are a couple of different answers to this question, depending on your situation. Please give us a call and we can go over the details with you.

After we have gathered as much information as we can, we will spend time researching homes that are similar to yours and prepare a Comparative Market Analysis (also called a CMA).  The purpose of a CMA is to determine the top dollar amount that your home is worth, without being so high that the house wouldn't sell.

We will also consult you on ways to improve the condition of your home in order to appeal to the largest segment of buyers. The biggest thing that you can do to appeal to buyers is to have the house as tidy as possible.

After we have listed your property, we will prepare the home for showings. With your permission, we will install a lockbox on the property to make it simple for realtors to show the home. We will take digital photos which will be entered into our website, the Realtor's Multiple Listing Service (RMLS), which will give all 10,000 Portland Realtors access to your listing, and we will design a color flier of your home. The home will be placed on a Broker's Open tour so that salespeople will become familiar with your home. A display easel in our front office window will feature a digital photo of your home, so that people walking by the office can stop in and inquire about your listing. We utilize direct mail advertising, sending out "Just listed" postcards. In addition, we do a significant amount of advertising with local neighborhood newspapers such as The Multnomah Village Post and SW Community Connections as well as hold open houses and advertise them in The Oregonian.

Another important aspect of this period is getting feedback from Realtors who have shown your property. When a Realtor has shown your property, let us know who showed it and what their phone number is so that we can get some feedback from the showing.

Once we get an accepted offer on your property, the first phase of the sale is the home inspection period. Buyers typically have seven to ten business days to conduct any professional inspections (most buyers will do a general home inspection, a search for an abandoned underground oil tank, and inspect the sewer line to make sure that there aren't any breaks). After the home inspection has been conducted, the buyer will write an addendum to the sale agreement either removing the home inspection contingency, asking for additional credits and/or repairs, or in rare instances withdraw an offer to purchase.

Sellers often ask us what the most common things are that come up on home inspection reports. According to Associated Master Inspectors, the 10 most common and easy items that come up on an inspection report are: 
  1. Prune vegetation away from the house 6-12 inches.
  2. Clean gutters.
  3. Replace/clean dirty filters.
  4. Repair leaky faucets.
  5. Install missing covers on electrical boxes.
  6. Replace any older smoke alarms to comply with new standards.
  7. Replace burned out light bulbs.
  8. Pull soil six inches away from the siding, basement windows, foundation vents and decks.
  9. Install 6 mil. plastic vapor barrier in crawlspace over exposed soil.10). Install earthquake straps on water heater.
After the home inspection period is over, the next step is the buyer conducting their appraisal. Sometimes the process of having an appraisal done on the property and having a home inspection done can be a little confusing--people tend to think that the two are one and the same. The difference between the two is that the appraisal is for the bank to determine the bank's value (not the condition) and the home inspection is to determine the condition of the property (not the value).

During this period, we are tracking all of the details and timelines. We are available to answer any questions that you may have and will communicate with you in a timely manner.

After the appraisal, the transaction is ready to proceed towards closing. Usually you will sign your closing documents a couple of days prior to the transaction actually closing. For clarification, many people call the appointment where you sign your closing documents "closing" which may lead people to think that the transaction is closed once the documents are signed. The transaction is typically closed a couple of days after you sign your closing documents, but be sure to ask us or your escrow officer (the person that conducts the signing of closing documents) for clarification.

That's pretty much it! Although it seems like an overwhelming process, we have the resources and expertise to make the transaction as smooth as possible for you.

 
 

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