Sellers

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.

Testimonials

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Buyer

Working with Elena makes it abundantly clear why having a great Realtor® on your team matters. We decided to contact Elena and got her number referred to us by my cousin who had worked with her in the past. Right off the bat, w...
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We were quickly outgrowing our townhome with 3 kids and had started looking for a single-family home, but we were not sure as to how to approach the entire thing. We did not engage any Realtor® and started looking on our own (s...
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Buyer & Seller

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We contacted Zillow to schedule an appointment to view a property that was for sale and we were randomly connected with Elena Licari of Compass Realty. We were fortunate to have been connected with Elena. It turned out to be a ...
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Selling a home that one has expanded and filled for 20+ years and finding a new dream home is, by all means, a daunting task if not impossible. After a couple of disappointing encounters with Realtors®, when I contacted Elena, ...
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We recently closed the sale of our primary home with the help of Elena and I am very happy to share my experience working with her. More than just an agent she was our guide and adviser who has deep knowledge of her domain. Aft...
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We were lucky to have accidentally found Elena on Zillow. I was looking for houses for about 8 months. Nothing on the market caught my eye. So I desperately need someone that has connections with the off-market listing and real...
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Elena helped us buy our dream home. When we started to look for a house we were very new to the real estate market, its rules, and terminology. Elena did several video meetings with us and explained in detail all stages of buyi...
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We were fortunate to have Elena recommended by a family friend. Our experience with her was outstanding. We could not have asked for more from a selling agent! Ours was a complicated transaction involving the sale of a family h...
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What a simple and pleasant task to write this review on our wonderful agent. Elena Licari. I found Elena based on her record and did not regret it for a single moment. It was immediately clear that helping people to buy and sel...
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We just sold our house in Campbell (July 2021) and had a fantastic experience working with Elena. She was professional, always on time, a great negotiator, and answered all our questions well. She has a great sense of aesthetic...
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We are fortunate enough to have found our dream home with Elena's help and experience. Elena helped us navigate through different areas and neighborhoods in the bay area before we narrowed down on where we wanted to be in the n...
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Elena was recommended to me by another real estate professional. Elena used her excellent knowledge and analysis of the local market to create the selling strategy, suggested several pricing options, and provided all the releva...
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Elena has been a joy to work with. We were looking for a house with very specific needs during COVID times. She understood our needs well and did her research to help us narrow it down to a smaller list of houses so that we spe...
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Elena is the ultimate Realtor®. We were introduced to her as we were entering the market earlier this year. We had an outstanding experience with her starting with our initial Zoom call where she walked us through what we could...
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In Elena, I did not find an agent at all I found a friend with who I could be very open and frank. What really stands out about her (something I was skeptical about before I started the home buying process) was unlike other age...
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As first-time home buyers, we are very grateful to have Elena as our agent. She is professional and knowledgeable and explained everything we need to know about a home purchase. After knowing our lifestyle and top priorities in...
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Elena is the best! Elena is knowledgeable, friendly, very easy to work with, and very responsive. She made our first dream home buying process a breeze. Elena is a doer! You have questions, just ask her. She will answer or get ...
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We were looking to buy our first home and choose Elena looking at a lot of positive reviews about her. After meeting her in person for our first home tour we were really impressed with her extensive knowledge. She has guided us...
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Elena spent a year with us as we struggled to find the right house in the right neighborhood with the right schools. We are ecstatic with our new place in Los Altos and are grateful to Elena for her expertise (and her patience)...
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We had the pleasure of working with Elena for our first home purchase in the crazy bay area market. We were familiar with her consummate professionalism as she's helped our family/friends over the years and came highly recommen...
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