Selling Your Edmonton Home: A Step-by-Step Guide
The EdmontonRealEstate.ca Team has prepared for you an easy-to-follow guide for selling your home:
Step 1: Choosing Your Agent and Obtaining a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA)
Choosing a real estate agent to represent you is one of the most important steps in the entire process and can save you from making regrettable mistakes when selling your home. Interviewing for the right agent can be a challenging process in itself, but asking the right questions will certainly help your cause. Making sure that their motives are in line with yours is only half the job—you should also make sure that they're qualified and have the skills and experience to represent you the way you want. A good working relationship with your agent is critical to success.
Have your agent also give you a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) by inviting them to take a look at your home and give you an idea of its approximate value. The agent should also assess other homes in the vicinity that are comparable to yours in the process in order to come up with some figures.
Step 2: Preparing the Proper Documents & Materials
When selling your Edmonton home, you should obtain specific documents and materials related to your property. These include: an updated survey of your property in the form of a Real Property Report, any documents pertaining to your home's warranty, any receipts for home repairs or renovations (such as new roofing), any rental or lease agreements, spare sets of keys, etc. If you live in a condo or an apartment, prepare all the documents you received from the board or management company. Your real estate agent can also help you with other documents you may need.
Step 3: Preparing Your Home
Consider making any major repairs prior to selling your Edmonton home, or at least offering to reimburse your potential buyer for any fixes they need to do. Failure to address any major issues with the home can drastically reduce the property's quality and price in the mind of the buyer, leading them to question if any other issues are being withheld from them. Cleaning up and de-cluttering your home can go a long way in making your home look more presentable, well-maintained, and enticing to potential buyers.
Step 4: Signing the Listing Documents
Listing documents are a legal contract and so you should fully understand the terms before signing them. Your real estate agent should explain to you each clause in the document and any implications they may have. Be sure to ask questions like, "When does the contract begin and how will it be fulfilled?" and "What are my rights and responsibilities as per the agreement?" Understand that these contracts are made to protect you as the seller and the brokerage equally.
Step 5: Marketing Your Home
Work with your real estate agent in coming up with a suitable strategy to market your home. Tell your agent about the features of your home that convinced you to purchase it in the first place, because chances are other buyers will be drawn to the same things. Look over the marketing materials your agent will provide you to see if there are any ideas or suggestions you can make, in order to further increase the value in the mind of buyers.
Step 6: Preparing for Scheduled Showings
Potential buyers may feel uncomfortable looking at your property while you're present, so arrange for an activity outside your home during the agreed-upon showing times. Take the opportunity to get some errands done or to catch up with a friend or neighbour. If a certain time doesn't work for you, simply tell your real estate agent and he or she will let potential buyers know to come in at another time.
Step 7: Assessing Your Strategy
After your property has been on the market for a few weeks, take some time to assess or re-asses the marketing strategy you and your real estate agent have implemented. Find out from your agent what works well and what needs certain improvements. These adjustments may include trying different advertising outlets (websites vs. newspapers), the property features that are being highlighted, and the asking price. EdmontonRealEstate.ca agents always remain proactive to ensure that your property listing doesn't go stale.
Step 8: Negotiating Offers
Once an interested buyer decides to make an offer, your real estate agent will contact you in order to present it. You can choose to meet, and after some negotiation, you will be required to provide some signatures to finalize agreements. The key to any successful negotiation deal is to have both parties involved end up feeling like they both walked away with good deals.
Step 9 : Agreeing to Conditions
Conditions attached to offers are pretty commonplace. This could be anything from buyers agreeing to purchase your home on the condition that your property passes a home inspection first, or that the deal is subject to their financing plans being approved. Your home will be considered "conditionally sold" typically during a period of 7-10 days, which is a good amount of time for conditions to be met and to avoid unnecessary extensions.
Step 10: Preparing for the Transfer of Ownership
A deal is considered "firm" once conditions have been met. At that point, you can start doing all the necessary preparations for the transfer of home ownership. You should book an appointment with a lawyer and fulfill any part of the contract that you signed to, in order to avoid a breach of contract (such as performing any major repairs that were stated).
Step 11: Closing the Sale & Transferring Ownership
It's best to have your possessions removed from your home by the previous day, at the latest. The changeover will usually happen at 12:00 pm (unless otherwise agreed upon), and you'd want to be ready long before that, as a show of courtesy to the new owners. Once the money has been transferred to your lawyer, who will notify your real estate agents, you can hand over your keys. Any transfer of money should be handled by your lawyers.
Request a free home evaluation to find out how much your home is worth on today's market. Feel free to contact us online or call us at 780-800-9644 with any questions you may have about selling your Edmonton home.