1. Don’t Tell Buyers Your Motivation

Approaching the process of selling your home is distinctively effected by your personal motivation. It is a completely different if you need to sell quickly than if you have months to get maximum profit. You do NOT want to tell buyers your situation as it WILL be used as leverage against you in negotiation.

2. How to Avoid Lawsuits

Sellers should disclose all known defects in WRITING so that you prevent future lawsuits from occurring once the property is already sold.

3. Do Some Home Shopping

You should go to other open houses in order to see what the competition is. This will not only allow you to have a reasonable idea of a listing price. But it will also give you a clear idea of what you should similarly to the best competition in order to guarantee the perception of your home is received well.

4. Leverage the Buyer’s Motivation

As I mentioned in tip #1, DO NOT let buyers know your situation because they will leverage it against you in negotiation. With that being said, try to learn as much as possible about their respective situations so that you may have an edge. Predominately, you should learn where they stand in their prioritization of price vs time. Specifically the NECESSITY OF A MOVE-IN DATE and the amount of MORTGAGE THEY ARE QUALIFIED TO CARRY.

5. Why Maximizing Prospects is Exponential…

Maximizing prospects allows for prospective buyers to consciously realize there is competition and will naturally encourage them to put in higher offers to begin with. It will also often create a bidding war increasing your TAKE HOME by 10’s of thousands of dollars.

6. Keep YOUR Emotions in Check

You’ve invested a significant portion of your life into your home. It can be very, very hard to address this process as a business transaction yet it is so important to do so. Because at the end of the day you should do what is necessary to maximize selling price. Are your immediate feelings going to be worth 10’s of thousands of dollars out of your pocket next year?

7. Appearances Are VITAL (This is general knowledge, but the degree of importance is undervalued)

Some people think it doesn’t make a big difference for your home to be spotless with trendy neutral colors etc. FALSE. There are two goals with appearance.

-Luxurious and Modern as possible.

-Neutral, so ANYONE can IMAGINE THEMSELVES LIVING IN IT and make changes to their taste.

8. Factors for Deciding if you need a Realtor and which one

Realtors vary significantly. KNOWLEDGE of the MARKET, MARKETING PLAN, and BACKGROUND should be your primary concern when deciding on a realtor. For instance at RE/MAX Capital you would be represented by Donald Kung who graduated from Berkeley with degrees in Real Estate and Economics over 30 years ago and has spent his entire very successful career representing sellers in the bay area. We also have a SIX PRONGED marketing approach where we advertise your home through our vast network of buyers, direct mailings, FB & Google ads, ALL website postings as well as physical signs.

**Almost 2 out of 3 people who sell their own homes said they wouldn’t do it again based on time, effort, legal liability and mostly, not getting the expected price. **

9. Eradicate Certain Odors

The subconscious minds of buyers will judge your house from the moment they walk in. It is paramount to make sure that first impression is supported with a fresh, clean smell. Smoke, pet, and even food smells WILL put off potential buyers. It is more important than you imagine and sometimes you can’t smell scents you are used to.

10. TAX Assessments – What they mean…

Tax assessments are based on a variety of criteria that are NOT the same as property values especially in certain markets.

11. Do NOT Deviate From the Contract

It’s much simpler to just say No to exceptions. More often than not, seemingly insignificant requests from the buyer snowball into bigger problems causing the deal to fall through, or worse, lawsuits.