The Process

The Process

  • McDowell Homes Group
  • 11/5/21
 

Sellers Page

A Comprehensive Guide to Selling Pleasanton, CA Real Estate

If you’re gearing up to sell your home in California’s Tri-Valley region, you’ve come to the right place. We’re here to guide you through every step of the selling process, leading you to the best possible deal.

Setting Clear Goals

Before you embark on your home selling journey, consider your main objectives and targets. Take time to answer important questions like:

  • What is my motivation for relocating?
  • Am I moving because I want to or is it because I have to (a job change, for example)?
  • Do I want dollars in my account as soon as possible?
  • Do I have time to wait for the best offer?
  • Is it time to cash in on my investment?
Your answers will help you chart a clear, targeted, and time-bound sales plan, guide you as you review offers, and decide which offer matches your needs and preferences best.

Working With a Real Estate Agent

When selling your property, expect to deal with meticulous details, tight deadlines, and a wide range of emotions – especially if you’ve invested a lot of sentimental value in your home. Work with an experienced real estate professional to lighten your load in a big way.

Your agent will help you:

  • Navigate and complete all the necessary processes and paperwork.
  • Stay objective and reliant on facts when pricing your property.
  • Design a targeted marketing plan and realistic selling timeline.
  • Decide on the best time to put your property on the market.
  • Represent your best interests with firmness and authority at the negotiation and closing tables.

Preparing Your Home to Sell

To make your property appealing to a broad range of potential buyers, use these key steps:

  • Depersonalize your living spaces. Keep personal décor and trinkets out of sight. This will allow visiting buyers to visualize how they can make the house their own.
  • Get repairs done on all the essentials. Don’t let buyers find leaky faucets or creaky hinges when they tour your home. Taking care of these small but important repairs will convince them that every part of the house is working as it should.
  • Boost your curb appeal to make a great first impression. Wow, your potential buyers even before they take one step inside your house. Set a positive and pleasant mood right from the start of your home tour.

Pricing Your Property

Assigning the right asking price for your home is essential to the success of your home sale. If you set an unreasonable list price based on emotions and personal biases, your listing will struggle to gain interest from serious buyers and savvy buyer’s agents.

Use your agent’s local expertise. In addition to researching average Pleasanton, California home prices, review properties similar to your home. Look into current listings and recent sales to determine a reasonable price range that comparable homes are fetching from local buyers.

Putting Your Home on the Market

Work closely with your agent to craft effective marketing materials and techniques designed to catch the attention of your target buyers. These include:

  • High-definition photos and videos.
  • Accurate, comprehensive, and creatively written descriptions.
  • High visibility on various online platforms such as real estate websites and social media.
  • Advertisements in prominent local publications and other similar promotional materials.
Your agent will determine the best time to make your listing publicly available, aiming to maximize exposure and visibility as soon as it goes live.

If you are a luxury property owner who would rather stay anonymous, ask your agent to market your home through their exclusive network and personal contacts.

Reviewing and Negotiating Offers

Patience is key at this stage of the selling process. Instead of getting excited or overwhelmed by early offers, sit down with your agent to review every detail of an offer package – from the offer price to contingencies, to mortgage terms and schedules.

Work with your agent to negotiate toward a mutually agreeable “sweet spot” between your buyer’s offer and your asking price. Your agent will provide an objective and level-headed stance representing your best interests at this crucial and often stressful juncture.

Fulfilling Contingencies and Closing the Deal

After you accept an offer and enter the escrow process with your buyer, your responsibility as the home seller is to allow inspectors and appraisers to access your home and perform their respective duties. Address any issues as soon as you can to prevent any delays in closing your sale.

Resources

When buying or selling a home for the first time, you should familiarize yourself with the escrow process. Escrow is the holding of funds by a third party for a designated purpose within a financial contract, including real estate sales. While not a legal requirement in California, it is a common real estate practice that protects the buyer’s and seller’s interests while the selling process is not yet complete. Any exchange of payment is frozen during the escrow period, as the seller and the buyer work to remove agreed-upon contingencies, and the buyer finalizes the financing for the house.

With soaring home prices in California, buyers and sellers may be bracing for an uptick in home inventory. While conditions have become slightly favorable for buyers, it’s still a good time to sell your home now – especially if you’ve been thinking about it for some time now. Read this article to learn about current and future market conditions and the benefits of putting your home up for sale. Find out why it’s advantageous to sell as soon as possible and how interest rates, profit margins, equity, slowing demand, the rise of the millennial buyer, as well as your emotional readiness are all factors in your decision to sell now. Read all about it here.

The real estate market in the California Tri-Valley area has been on an upswing. With such solid conditions, it would appear that selling your home in Pleasanton or Danville today would mean a huge and quick profit. But that is not necessarily the case. If your property has been sitting on the market with very few interested buyers calling to inquire, you could be making mistakes you may not be aware of. The longer your home stays on the market, the lower the chance you can sell it at the price you want. We look at six reasons why your home is not selling the way it’s supposed to.

Your home is more than just a piece of real estate – it’s a high-value asset that can yield high returns if you are able to facilitate a successful sale. But given how lengthy and complex the selling process is, it can be difficult to close a sale. Your home might not attract high offers or it may sit on the market longer than expected.

To ensure the quick and profitable sale of your home, we put together a list of common home selling mistakes to avoid. In this post, we cover everything from lack of professional guidance to setting an unrealistic sales price.

Get the best offers for your Pleasanton, CA home for sale with the McDowell Real Estate Group.

To learn more about top real estate selling techniques, work with us, Peter and Mari McDowell of the McDowell Real Estate Group. Let’s start a conversation today at (925) 596-4746. You may also send your inquiries via email at [email protected].



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Helping home buyers find just the right home and helping home sellers find just the right buyers for their homes. We help people in the Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore, San Ramon and Danville area with property of all kinds.

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