10 Steps to Selling a Home

In an ideal world, selling your home is quick and stress-free. At Boll Realty, located in Ottertail, MN, we try to make that dream a reality. Learn about the home selling process with our 10 step guide below. If you have further questions, contact one of our friendly real estate agents for help today.

1: Choose a Trustworthy Realtor

Anyone can sell a home, but you’ll want to hire a professional to ensure a pain-free process and to be certain you are receiving a fair price for your property. Selling your home can be an exhausting, emotional process. Thankfully, the professionals at Boll Realty are here to help you through it. We’re a family-owned and operated realty company with more than 4 decades of experience in selling homes and properties in the Otter Tail County area. We’re committed to giving our clients personalized service and fair, informed advice. Before we continue with the process, we’ll discuss things such as taxes, agent commission, marketing/advertising costs and inspection costs. Next, we’ll sign a listing agreement.

2: Determine Your Home’s Value

Homeowners tend to either overestimate or underestimate their home’s value. An overpriced home will sit on the market, and an underpriced home may hurt your financial future. At Boll Realty, we’ll help you figure out just what your home is worth by analyzing comparable homes in the area based on active, pending, sold, expired and canceled listings.

3: Set a Price to Sell Your Home

Once we’ve figured out the value of your home, we’ll factor in the associated costs of selling it. We will also discuss any necessary repairs or upgrades that might increase your asking price.

4: Preparing to List Your Property

You’ll want to prepare your home for sale by thoroughly cleaning and de-junking each room, and improving your property’s curb appeal by painting fences and trim, tidying up the yard, mowing, trimming, and making any necessary landscape repairs. Make all the improvements that you discussed with the agent when setting a price; we cannot stress enough the necessity for a clean, well-kept home in making it saleable and ensuring your asking price.

5: Showing Your Property

Your Boll Realty agent may ask you to consider professionally staging your home to increase its appeal to buyers. It is a good idea to move excess furniture into storage to open up rooms and make the home feel more spacious. If there are things you absolutely will not sell with the home, then you’ll want to remove them before opening it up to potential buyers.

6: Offers and Negotiations

The negotiation process can feel grueling, especially if this is your first time selling a home. At Boll Realty, we understand that you have a lot invested in your property. So, our agents will help keep you grounded enough to avoid making emotional decisions on what must be viewed as a business transaction. We want you to feel comfortable enough with us to trust that we have your best interests in mind.

How much power you have in these negotiations depends on how desperate you are to move the property, how quickly the buyer must move, and how tight the market is. Your Boll agent will work hand-in-hand with you to discuss these tactics before and during the sale.

7: Sale & Purchase Agreement

So, you’ve accepted an offer on your home. This means you’ve entered into a signed, legal contract between the buyer and you, referred to as a Purchase and Sale Agreement.

8: Home Inspections Process

The home buyer will hire a licensed home inspector to evaluate the true condition of your home. The roof, foundation, heating and cooling systems, plumbing, electrical, etc. will be considered. Every detail of every corner will be examined and a final report will be prepared. The buyers will then have the opportunity to renegotiate the contract based on these findings and expected costs of repair. Your Boll agent is knowledgeable on the price of such repairs and will advise you accordingly.

9: Final Contracts & Escrow

When you accept a final offer on your home, the buyer will place earnest money in escrow. This earnest money is held by an impartial third party until you and the seller negotiate a final contract and close the home deal. Neither you nor the seller has access to this money, and it protects you both. Once the closing date is set, escrow provides an opportunity for both parties to have an escrow officer present to ensure the contract is complete.

10: House Closing Process

On closing day, the buyer will typically do a final walk-through of the property to ensure that you are completely moved out and that all agreed-upon repairs have been made. Closing consists of all parties sitting down to sign documents on the purchase. Both parties pay any settlement fees and the documents are officially recorded at this time. In advance of closing day, you’ll receive a statement outlining any settlement fees which you are responsible for.

After this step is complete, congratulations – you have sold your home!