Home Seller?s Checklist

This is a checklist to help you get prepared to sell your home.  It is a compilation of important things to research before you put your ?For Sale? sign in the ground.

1.   How much is your home worth?  This doesn?t seem to be a hard question to answer when you are talking with friends, neighbors or family. When you are actually going to give up your home and property for a sum of money, the value of your home becomes a little more difficult to determine.

How do you start? Maybe finding out what your neighbor sold his house for might give you an idea.  Check the newspapers for any houses like yours listed in the neighborhood.  Figure out how much your finished basement is worth and your new concrete driveway.  Your roof is 8 years old, how much is that worth?  Your heater and A/C is 3 years old, how much do you allow for this?

A professional realtor answers these questions and more when they prepare a Comparative Market Analysis referred to as a CMA.  I do this FREE of charge when requested.

2.   What do I do to get my house ready to show?  Basically you will have to remove the clutter. Is that dog or cat odor going to matter?  What about that room with the pale yellow you painted 3 years ago. Should you paint it or let the new owners paint it the color they want.  You will want to stage your house to make it look as big, warm and comfortable as you can.

3.   Now it?s time to put your sign in the ground.  Do you want just your phone number? By appointment only? Are you going to put flyers out front in a tube and how much information should the flyers have?

4.   When are you going to show your house?  Is someone going to be home all day long?  Are you going to take calls at work?  Can you leave work to show your house anytime of the day?  What liabilities do you have when people are looking at your house?  What should you say and not say about your house?  Do you feel comfortable having your wife and children at home without you when showing your house to strangers?

5.   Should you have an Open House?   Most sellers will have an open house.  Your house needs to be ready to show.  What do you do if it rains?  How do you advertise the open house?  What do potential buyers expect from an Open House?  Is there anything you should not tell your buyer and what are the things you have to tell your potential buyer?

6.   Should you advertise your house and how much should you advertise?   I advertise in the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald.   I also put listings into these newspapers? websites.   You will miss the Multiple Listing Service I use.  This is the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois. Over 32,000 realtors see my listings as soon as they are posted. So get your sign in the ground and run an ad in both newspapers. I would do more, but this is a start.

7.   You will want to have a good lawyer.  Make sure you contact your lawyer about selling your house so that you fill out all the necessary forms and get a current contract for the purchase of your house. You may want to ask your lawyer how much earnest money to ask for and what to do after the buyer has your home inspected.  These again, are things that I help my sellers with.

8.   Before you priced your house, did you figure what your ?net proceeds? would be? You will need to find out if there are any transfer taxes to be paid and who pays them?  What is the amount you will need to pay off your mortgage? What will be the taxes due at closing and the tax proration?  Did you figure the cost of a survey and if it must be staked and flagged? You will also want to check if your city requires a city inspection be selling your house.

9.  How do you know if you have a good buyer?  Is your buyer pre-approved or
pre-qualified?  When should you stop showing your house if you have a buyer?

10.What if a buyer wants seller financing?  Do not be alarmed if your potential buyer   wants you to pay closing costs.  This is a common request these days and can be taken care of in the price of you house. You will not to know how much they can use so that you are not wasting money and hampering the appraisal of your house.

11. If something is found to be in question or not working from the inspection, what do you have to pay for?  This can be up to you except for safety items and code violations. A double-tap wire in your electric box is a safety item. Some wiring you have done on your own in the basement may not meet your village codes. These items will have to be taken care of.  A leaky roof, a broken window, a cracked driveway and any other items that don't affect habitability will be up to you and the buyer to work out.  Should mold be detected, this could be a potentially expensive problem to be resolved.  I have experienced all of these problems with my clients and I know how to handle them.