Getting Started:
7-Step Guide to Selling Your Home

Your home is more than an architectural structure. Often, it's an extension of who you are, your personality, style and values. That's why selling it can be an emotional experience. But it can also be exciting and rewarding.

Step 1: Prepare to Sell Your House

Home selling can be complex, but we can guide you through the process and help you understand new seller disclosure statements, longer and more mysterious form agreements, and a range of environmental concerns that have all emerged in the past decade.

Preparing your home to sell? Visit the DFW marketplace for a list of home repair services who can help you.

Visit DFWMarketplace

Step 2: Find a REALTOR®

In the maze of forms, financing, inspections, marketing, pricing and negotiating, it makes sense to work with professionals who know the community and much more. Our CENTURY 21 Mike Bowman professionals are the local experts who serve your area.

Your CENTURY 21 Mike Bowman agent will help you create a marketing plan that will make it easier to sell your home at the best price possible in the shortest amount of time.

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Step 3: Set the List Price of Your Home

Several factors, including market conditions and interest rates, will determine how much you can get for your home. In other words, home selling is part art, part science, part marketing and part negotiation. A key part of your marketing plan is setting the list price. Quite simply, if a home is priced too low, you miss out on potential profit. If a home is priced too high, qualified buyers will look elsewhere.

To determine the best asking price, review the prices of recently sold, comparable homes in the area; evaluate the competition, and study marketplace trends. Our CENTURY 21 Mike Bowman professionals have ready access to this information, and can provide the big picture to help you determine the right asking price.

• Real estate is local. Your CENTURY 21 Mike Bowman Agent can explain current market factors in your community, including what's selling, what isn't selling, and why. This information is critical to setting an optimal price and terms.
• If your house is located in a desirable area you will be able to get a higher price than you can for the same house in a less desirable area.
• If a house has amenities that are currently popular in the marketplace, it will bring a higher price. Your CENTURY 21 Mike Bowman Agent can help identify top trends.
• A house that has been better maintained and shows better will always sell for more than one that has had deferred (neglected) maintenance and needs work.
• Buyers expect everything to work. It's an important trust factor, and worth the time and expense to make basic repairs.
• Markets differ by location and time. When interest rates are low and the local job base is growing, it's great to be a seller. But when times are slack and mortgage rates are rising, homes also sell. The trick is to be realistic, to get as much as market conditions will allow.

Questions? Our CENTURY 21 Mike Bowman real estate professionals are ready to assist you.

Step 4: Showing Your Home and Getting Maximum Exposure

Our CENTURY 21 Mike Bowman real estate professionals are a tremendous resource. Once you find a REALTOR, they will provide you with information detailing current market conditions, financing options and negotiating issues that might apply to a given situation. Ask your agent for a list of schools, shopping centers, parks or other amenities that are important to you. Buying a new home is about more than the structure and property. It's about your new lifestyle as well.

Step 5: Negotiate a Real Estate Offer

Successful negotiating encompasses the acquired ability to use certain skills and techniques to bring about coveted win-win results. Your CENTURY 21 Agent can help you stay focused, objective, and not let your emotions rule.

Start with a thoroughly researched, fair price. Respect the other side's priorities. For example, a buyer with an urgent move-in date might be willing to pay a higher portion of the transaction costs or forgo some major repairs. Or, they may prefer to extend the closing date, in order to be more confident that there will be no unanticipated additional expenses.In any case, be prepared to compromise: "win-win" doesn't mean both the buyer and the seller will get everything they want. It means both sides will win some and give some

Step 6: Real Estate Closing

The real estate closing is a meeting in which payment is transferred from buyer to seller. Find more information about closing a home sale here.

Closing can also be referred to as settlement or escrow. Local area and state laws can vary, which is why enlisting the assistance of a CENTURY 21 Agent is sound advice.

In general, the closing process begins with the acceptance of an offer. Prior to closing, all conditions of sale also known as contingencies must be met. The most common and obvious! is the buyer's ability to secure a new mortgage.

A title company is usually hired to conduct a search for any recorded documents that affect the deed to the property. Examples include easements, liens, tax assessments, covenants, conditions and restrictions, and homeowner association bylaws. The buyer and lender must approve the preliminary title report prior to closing.

Once the conditions of sale have been met and the preliminary title report has been approved, all parties will agree to sign closing documents. The preliminary title report then becomes the final title report, on which any applicable title insurance is based. After the documents have been signed, notarized copies will be forwarded to the lender, funds will be released, and the sale will be recorded at the local recorder's office.

Your CENTURY 21 Mike Bowman agent will help you create a marketing plan that will make it easier to sell your home at the best price possible in the shortest amount of time.

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Step 7: Plan Your Move

Whether you have moved once or a dozen times, it never seems to get any easier. Here are some hints that we hope you will find helpful as you prepare for moving day.

Make agreements with buyers about possession of the home and moving date. Start planning early. From the moment you decide to put your home up for sale, start sorting through your current possessions. Toss (or give away, sell at a yard sale or online) anything that you don't want to take with you. Make a list of important items you will need to buy for your new house, such as drapes, blinds, shower curtains, etc. Having these things with you on the day you move helps you settle in more comfortably.

Use our handy checklist to help you plan your move.
Download Moving Checklist

Your CENTURY 21 Mike Bowman agent will help you create a marketing plan that will make it easier to sell your home at the best price possible in the shortest amount of time.

Find a Real Estate Professional