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A 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 team of real estate agents 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 team of real estate agents once you choose one so they 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 team of real estate agent is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. A team of real estate 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

We 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. Our 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 team of real estate agents.

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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. We 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 team of real estate agents 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.

Buyer
Buyer
Aime A.
Esmeralda & Alex
Steven & Flor
Yesenia A.
Mari T.
Guido C.
Raul G.
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Jim worked with us for almost a year to find and buy our first home. He was very patient and understanding of our needs. As this was our first home we had lots of questions and needed a lot of help. I would recommend Jim to anyone looking to buy a home.

— Buyer

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

I want to thank Jim again for everything he's done for us! Amazing personality, easygoing, thinking outside the box and problem solving, always willing to listen and gets things done! What more could I ask for? Lowering the price? Jim tried and got us fair deals. I consider myself extremely lucky that you helped us with our purchase and remodeling!

— Buyer

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Being new to the business, you want to get as much training as possible from the very best. I remember standing next to Jim and listening, taking mental notes thinking to myself, how lucky am I to have this opportunity handed to me? Real, professional, experienced, ethical, and result-driven. Everything you want and everything you need. Every single client has different needs and requires undivided atten...

— Aime A.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Jim Zappulla is an excellent real estate agent! He helped me buy my first home. I was told by other real estate agents that I would never be able to purchase a home and much less in the area that I wanted. However, Jim made it happen for us. His years of experience, patience, faith, and awesome negotiation skills helped make our dream come true! He pulled through for me and my family and helped us buy th...

— Esmeralda & Alex

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Jim Zappulla helped me buy my first home in a great neighborhood for my wife and family. We talked daily and he always had time to show me homes. There were 7 offers on the home we bought. This is why you must have an expert when buying a home. He had already pre-qualified me with a preferred lender, conventional 3.5% with 5% down fixed for 30 years. The sellers chose our offer (not the highest offer) be...

— Steven & Flor

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Jim is a full-service REALTOR and routinely went above and beyond. His work ethic is second to none. He worked tirelessly around the clock throughout the entire process and continuously communicated to keep us informed and prepared. Through his 40 years of experience, he has built a team and a network that he leveraged to give us the very best service and resources at every step. Whether it was choosing ...

— Yesenia A.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

It is my pleasure to write this letter of refferal for Jim Zappulla, Keller Williams Superior Estates with whom I have had the privilege of working with many year. Throughout our proffessional relationship, Jim has consistently demonstrated integrity, professionalism, and a genuine commitment to serving the best interests of his clients. Jim is a respected professional who always prioritizes their clie...

— Mari T. | Mari T.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Working with Jim has been a great experience. He's very knowledgeable when it comes to the new purchase of a property. He'll let you know whether it's a good deal or not. He knows what's convenient, how to get better deals on housing fixes, AC etc. He's also a great human being, I've known him for 11 years and he'll go out of his way to help you out. He always goes the extra mile to get you in a nice pro...

— Guido C. | Guido C.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Jim is a professional real estate agent in all South Bay Area, very professional, reliable and knowledgeable man. I truly recommend this man for buy or sell your dream home.

— Raul G. | Raul G.

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