Working with a San Francisco Realtor to sell your home is one of the best decisions you can make. In a fast-paced real estate market like this one, it takes experience, professionalism, grit, and dedication to get your home sold to the right buyer at the right price.
Having said that, as a seller, there are ways you will be able to inhibit or streamline that process. Danielle Lazier + Associates has been working with San Francisco home sellers for 15 years, and we’ve had sellers of all types. If you want your home sold expediently, here are five ways you can be an ideal seller, and streamline your home selling process.
Let’s get this one sorted right out of the gate. Be honest with your San Francisco Realtor. Be open about flaws or pain points, even if you’re worried they might hurt your sale. Believe us: the sooner we find out about that leaky faucet or that crack in the foundation the sooner we can react to it. The absolute worst thing you can do when it comes to selling a home is try to obfuscate the little details. What might be a minor roadblock early on, if it isn’t addressed properly, could derail a potential sale down the line.
Some things might inform pricing, or might be necessary to disclose for insurance or other purposes. Save yourself a legal headache, and just be totally frank and up-front. The more information we have, the better.
Indeed, most of the things sellers have hidden over the years have been trivial. A water pressure issue, for instance, might seem like a huge bugbear, but it can often be fixed in a matter of minutes. That brings us to our next tip.
When it comes to buying a home, perception everything. Maybe your pet rabbit scratched the hardwoods or chomped the door frames. Maybe the paint has worn bare near the light switches in the bathroom. Have years of dust and grit stained the siding?
In a practical sense, these are completely trivial. But to a buyer, they might be viewed as costly repairs when all they’d really take is a trip to the hardware store and some elbow grease. So go ahead and get them mended! Fresh paint, new trim, sanded and waxed hardwoods – all these little changes make a world of difference to the value perception for your home, so, in the spirit of being an active seller, it’s best to get them sorted out.
One major deterrent for potential buyers is a home that feels too personal. Besides unsightly clutter, too much character makes a home feel very “yours” and can be a little unwelcoming.
Since you’re moving anyway, now’s a great time to pack everything up. It might not be practical to remove all the furniture, but in the competitive San Francisco market, your best bet is to keep your home magazine ready 24/7. This typically means relocating during the selling process.
The next step is to invest in staging, which is something that all expert San Francisco Realtors will recommend as a necessity. The return on investment will make any staging costs more than worth it!
Selling a home is an immensely complex process. It touches on finances and taxation, insurance, property and zoning law, and more. It’s data intensive, and it will fall to you to provide most of the appropriate documentation.
Financial records, for instance, have a way of getting lost on the kitchen table. You might need to provide years of proofs of income to arrange a new mortgage, for instance, and even if you’ve submitted those documents to your bank, you may be asked to provide them again for other purposes.
Don’t leave anything to chance. Keep a folio or filing cabinet of every form, file, record, contract, email, and anything else even peripherally related to your sale, and keep it orderly. You should, ideally, be able to provide any record within about 48 hours from when it’s requested. If it takes you even a couple of weeks to have a replacement mailed from wherever, you could be holding your sale back by months in the long run.
Remember one thing above all else: your San Francisco Realtor has your best interests at heart. We want nothing more than to win you the best possible sale for your home and have both the buyer and the seller come away from the transaction feeling satisfied. That’s good for you, it’s good for us, it’s good for our business, and it’s something we take a lot of pride in.
We’re here to help, so it’s important to let us do our jobs the best we can. We’ve got years and years of experience in this market, so when it comes to things like pricing, timetables, or other expectations, we’re going to give you the best information, and when it comes to tips and changes, we’re not going to lead you astray.
If you’re ready to sell your San Francisco home, give Danielle Lazier + Associates a call. We’ve got the experience — and the proven track record — to get your home sold quickly, efficiently, and rewardingly. Remember, the best financial decision you can make in this market is to upgrade to the highest value home you can plausibly afford, as soon as possible, since your investment is only going to grow.
