This is a series of articles which looks at selling your house. Each article will build from the other to give a start to finish self help series to aid people to sell your house. The spring 2008 home sales market is starting to open in the sense you must start the process now to have your house ready for the spring market. This is a very important factor in selling your house this year, is to be prepared for the market.
The first part covered in article 1 "Sell Your House" was to find a agent that you are comfortable with. I don't mean a agent which just tells you everything you want hear either. This type of agent will only hurt your efforts to sell your house. The time it takes to find a good agent will be well worth it. Some people just use the word of mouth on finding a agent. This can be helpful, but what was the market like when these people used that agent. During the home market bubble days a child with a cardboard sign and pop up table could of sold a house, from their lemonade stand. So, ask when the person used their agent to we buy houses. This will be a important factor. Once you look around now days you find that only agents that are better at their jobs are the ones who are left in the sales market of today, that is if they are a seasoned agent with more then 10 years experience.
The other thing you must be very careful of is the hybrid/discount home sellers. These are are like comparing the big well known car dealers to the corner lot with the sales/owner wearing his plaid suits and telling you what deal he has for you. The thing is these guys are using high tech ways of selling you their services. These people hide behind TV and computer screens as they sell their services as a faceless animated service. These services assist you in selling your home and that's it. They became very popular in the bubble era also as they did not charge very much for what they were doing and still got a house sold. Remember, as I stated above a kid with a cardboard sign could have sold a house during this time period. This is becoming self evident as these discount places have had to resort to lots of TV ads to keep their business going, lucky for them they still have money left over from the good time market and some people believe anything they hear in a TV Ad.
Once you have found a agent who is well rounded, you can sit down and start to talk about your house with them. The agent should be one who knows about houses and what needs to be done to a house long before the sign hits the front yard. The agents now days who know what they are doing, are joining up with people who know how to fix and stage a home for sale. When you want to sell your house you need a well rounded person now days more then anything. Ask the agent what their game plan is on selling your house. There's so much more then just placing signs and ads for open house now days. The comparable houses that have sold in your area was a large part of selling your house also. These are things that any agent should know along with setting the correct price for your house. We will cover these areas more in articles to come.
The agent if he or she is well rounded should be looking at the whole house and if they don't have the experience to see your house as whole package and what needs to be done you need to ask them to find someone to help. The whole house needs to be looked at in great detail. The whole house just so you know is the total yard and house, not just the inside of the house like some house staging people would lead you believe. The house staging professionals of yesterday started off in the home interior design market and have the feeling that a interior designer is what a house needs to sell. The inside is just a small part of what needs to be looked at. To sell your house it needs to be looked at starting right from the front curb.
