Selling Your Home

If these (hopefully) final days of winter and snow are keeping you more stuck inside, there are lots of things you can do get your house ready to sell if that's on the horizon for you! I'm including my checklist here, but a couple of other tips I have- Set a timer for each room. Do as much as you can in that time period with no distractions. (Reset if you need to, but setting a time limit really helps me focus better and that task doesn't yawn endlessly before me!) Do a "blue tape walkthrough" for your house- just like we do with new construction to note areas for the contractor to come back to. Better yet, have me (or a good friend with an eagle eye) do it. This will help you get your list together of projects to do before selling- things like that jiggly towel bar, the outlet that doesn't work, the paint and caulking touch ups... then call me for my vendor list, or reach out to the folks you've worked with before who can help you! Check out the downloadable checklist below and see what you can accomplish! Click HERE or the image above to download.

Let's discuss my top 10 questions to ask a potential listing agent when choosing someone to list your home. What is their experience and/or familiarity with the area where your home is located? What is their listing experience? What is their level of understanding of the forms and legalities? Are they personable? What is their marketing strategy? How well can they negotiate? How will they handle everything from contract to closing? What do you as the seller need to do? How do they communicate? Do they "play well" with others (agents, buyers, etc.)? Have questions? Ready to talk real estate? Send me a message via Instagram at CindyBennettRealEstate or here on my website.

Everyone wants your home. At least that's what Google would have you believe. If you're thinking about selling your house, and you go on the good old Google and type in "home selling" or anything that sounds remotely like that, you're going to get a whole page of different companies. In most cases, it's not going to be great agents that could help you sell your home or a "how-to" guide. For the most part, you will get a page or two of companies that want to purchase your home for "market value" and so easy with no realtor. So a lot of these companies will tell you to just enter your address and they will make it so easy for you. You don't even have to clean. We'll come in and buy your house for market value. We'll close quickly, and then you know, you can move on with your life. For a lot of people, in a lot of financial situations, that can sound so appealing, but there are, with a lot of these companies, so many hidden fees. So if you're looking at doing that, make sure that you ask your questions. I would also encourage you to call a realtor that you trust that can look at all of that documentation and tell you if it is truly market value, or if you could, with just a little bit of effort, make a good amount of money more than those people will pay you, because in most cases, they're going to pay you less than market value. They're going to do very minimal repairs or painting, things like that and then they're going to put it back on the market for considerably more than they're going to pay you for your house. So while I don't have any problem with people making money, and sometimes, you know, you just need to get out and move on, I get it, but make sure that you understand the market and understand exactly what their fees are, because a lot of these companies do charge a good amount of fees, and in many cases, they're gonna get a home inspection and ask you to pay for repairs before you close. These things often show up when you are too far into the transaction to back out. So proceed with caution, when you're looking at a lot of these companies that come up when you're thinking about selling your home because nobody is giving you a free lunch, and if they're going to come in and make the deal super easy, they're going to get something from you in return. The next thing you'll see on Google are going to be lots of companies telling you that they can connect you to a great agent in your area. Keep in mind that in most of those cases, they are then going to get your information and sell it to an agent. In many cases, that agent will have to pay them 30%/40%/50% of the commission that they earn. I will also say in those cases, the vetting process is not always great. Sometimes it is not the best agent in your area. It's the agent who answered the text message saying we've got buyer leads or seller leads in your area."Do you want them? You just have to pay us a referral fee." Sometimes great agents respond to those, and often not great agents respond to them. So make sure that you're doing your due diligence, and don't just click on the first link that comes up on Google, because I can guarantee you it is not going to be the best thing for you. Do your homework. Give me a call. I'm always happy to read through information. Give you a little bit of advice if you're trying to figure out the best route to go. And I'll be honest, if somebody is going to give you a great deal on your house and you don't have to do anything for it, I'm going to tell you to take it. But in most cases, there's something else lurking behind there. So just, not only buyer beware, seller beware.

How much does it cost to sell a home anyway? The easiest answer to that, as in real estate often, is it depends. It depends on the house, the market, and a whole bunch of things. Below are some of the most common expenses (and their general associated cost) that you will see when you go to sell a home. Commission: This will be whatever has been negotiated in your listing agreement and/or purchase agreement. This is usually going to be your biggest chunk (aside from your mortgage payoff if you have one). Pre-Listing Expenses: Your Realtor® (hopefully me) will likely recommend you do a few things to get your home ready for market. This can be as simple as a new doormat or paint, but depending on your ability and willingness could be redoing floors or larger maintenance fixes. On average, you can usually expect to pay between $2k-5k. Attorney/Title Fees: Whether you are using a title company or attorney to handle your closing you will of course have to pay them. This is usually between $600-800. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. Property Taxes: These are going to be prorated, so if you have just paid, you're going to get some of that back for the time after you've closed. If you haven't paid, you can rest assured that they're going to be on that settlement statement to be paid at closing. Grantors Tax: In Virginia, you will also have to pay this tax at closing. It is generally about 1% of the sales price of the home. That will get split between the city, county, state, etc. as essentially a "transaction fee" to the different government municipalities. Mortgage Payoff (if applicable): Most people will have a mortgage payoff at closing. This will also include any additional mortgages, home equity loans, etc. that you may have taken out over the years. Additional Fees: Your last fees are going to be those courier fees and wire transfer fees for those payoffs. Your lender and closing company are going to make sure that that payoff is up to the minute and to do that, they're going to put a rush fee on there. Generally, that will be between $200-300. All in all, when you go to sell your home, the largest chunk of money that you're going to spend is usually going to be in commissions and/or repair costs. Everything else is going to be, in most cases, between $1k-2k tops. So if you're thinking about selling and you want to know what your numbers shake out like, give me a call or send me a message. I'd love to talk to you and help you see if selling now or selling later makes more financial sense to you and to see where the numbers fall, so you have a good, accurate depiction of what the end of the day is going to look like and what you'll walk away with.

Are you nose blind to those smells in your home? You may not want to put your house on the market until those smells have dissipated. Let's talk about how that may affect the sale of your home and what you can do to fix it. Have questions? Ready to talk real estate? Send me a message via Instagram at CindyBennettRealEstate or via my website www.cindybennett.net.

With the NAR Settlement and changes to the real estate industry, you may be wondering if you can just sell your house yourself. Why do you even need a Realtor®? Technically, you don't, but before you make any decisions you may want to think about why it may not be the best idea.

How do you sell a house if you still have a mortgage on it? A lot of people have this question and it's understandable because most people have a mortgage on their home. The good news is you don't have to have completely paid off your home to sell it. So here's how it works. When you go to sell your home, you have to continue paying your mortgage. Once you accept a contract on your home and you get closer to closing, what are the things that your closing agent, whether it's a title company or an attorney's office is going to do is make sure that they have a payoff for the date of closing. So let's say, for example, you're going to close on July 10. They're going to get the payoff of your mortgage effective July 10. When the buyer brings their money to closing, however, they do it, that money gets paid off to your mortgage company, so you are now free and clear. What's left is what you get, but also what goes to pay your transfer taxes, et cetera, et cetera. Long story short, your mortgage gets paid off by your settlement agent effective the date of the closing. Now, one of the things you may not even think about until you're going through that whole process is the escrow account you set up when you first bought your house. From that escrow account, your taxes on your home, and homeowner's insurance get paid. So usually they have a buffer in that escrow account so that you don't have to get an updated mortgage payment every time the tax rate goes up, or your insurance goes up.  The buffer amount depends on your escrow account, your individual circumstances, and how much is left in that. The leftover amount gets mailed back to you from your mortgage company and it usually takes about six weeks. Sometimes you need to check with them because as you probably know, nobody likes to give up money very easily. So make sure that you're looking for that check once you've moved and that they have your updated address so that it doesn't go to your old address. So if you're thinking of selling, you want to sell your home and you're wondering if you can even do that because you still owe money on it, yes, you can. Give me a call. Let's talk about it. Look at that whole scenario and figure out what you need to get your home sold. Give me a call, send me a message, and let's get talking.

Here are the top 10 things that you might not think about (but should) before you get ready to put your house on the market. Make sure that you've cleaned and tidied up before you leave the house in the morning. If you've got showings (or potentially might have showings) getting those crumbs off the counter, making sure all the toilets are flushed, etc. Those little things go a long way into making your home go from really appealing to "ew, you wouldn't believe the house that we saw today". Make sure that you have something to do with your pets when your home is being shown. Don't leave your dog or cat in a space and then expect the buyers to either not be afraid of them or do something with them (don't let the dog out, don't let the cat out, etc). When you ask people to do chores, it becomes less appealing and then they're very distracted thinking "Oh my gosh, am I gonna let the cat out? Did I let the cat out? Where's the cat?" They're not looking at your house, they're looking for your cat because you've told them that that's what they need to do. You don't always have to have your closets impeccably clean, but 110% people will open your closets. So make sure you're getting stuff off the floor, and that the closets are at least well organized and not packed full of stuff. When people see your home packed full of stuff, they immediately think, "Gosh, I have this much stuff and they are bursting at the seams. Where am I going to put my stuff?". That's not what you want buyers thinking when they're looking at your home. Put all your cleaning materials away. When you leave things like sponges, sprays, etc. out it just looks unfinished. Put all your medicines and valuables away, or better yet, take them with you. You don't know who's coming into your house and while nobody's going to be able to come in and tour without having an agent, you don't know who the people are. Your refrigerator. Maybe you're going to take it with you, maybe you want to leave it but people are still going to open it. So if it looks filthy, it's going to give an impression of your whole house. So make sure your fridge is clean and that it doesn't smell because that sort of thing does leave an impression. People are probably going to use your bathroom. It would be great if they didn't, but often they will. If people are looking at four or five houses in a day, they might have to go and if you're trying to sell your house, you don't want them saying "I can't look at this, I have to go to the McDonald's to use the bathroom". You want them to keep looking at your house. Make sure that your front door/entrance area is neat and tidy on the outside.  Have a fresh doormat, make sure there are no cobwebs, etc. Trust me, in the Richmond area, if you walk away after cleaning cobwebs, there's already a spider doing a new cobweb before you come back. So that's something you need to do all the time. It's not a do it before you put your house on the market and then leave it alone. Give it a look every day as long as your home is on the market and make sure that it's swept off and it looks neat. As we always say, you want people to visualize themselves coming into their (future) home, not yours. The more clues that it's yours, the less they're getting attached and engaged with your home and the idea of it being theirs. Keep your grass mowed and lawn care, neat and tidy. It doesn't have to be a fancy European garden-style situation. It just needs to be mowed, trimmed, neat, clean. If you've got a lot of leaves, get them up because nobody wants to look at a house and all they see is work. Because it's all they see is work, they are not buying your house. Get a friend, your realtor, or somebody to come through before you go on the market, as well as periodically while you're on the market, and give it a once over to tell you if you have weird smells. Do you need to freshen something up, clean it up, or straighten it up? Get somebody that has a more objective vision and viewpoint that can give you an honest assessment of how your home shows to people, and make sure that your agent is getting feedback from the people who come to take a look at your house because that's going to make a big difference. The overall impression and the overall way your home appears is what's going to sell or not sell it. If you have any questions about ways to get your particular home ready, or maybe you are just starting to think about getting your home on the market and you want to know what you need to do, give me a call. I'd love to talk to you and help you make that little checklist that's unique to your home and where you want to be.

Did you know that out of all of the agents that are out there licensed, 49% of them have sold one home or none? That's kind of crazy to think about. So if you're thinking about buying or selling a home, and you're thinking about who you want to help you in this process, here are some tips on hiring a realtor. It would be really easy for me to say, if you're there in the metro Richmond area call me, done. But maybe you're in another market. Maybe you want to buy a home in another state. Maybe you live in this area, and you want to move to Oklahoma or somewhere else. What are the things that you want to look for when you're hiring an agent? Number one, see what they've done and what their experience is (which isn't necessarily that they are the top producer, standing in the ad in the magazine saying I've sold over 150 homes this year). Usually those people aren't doing that all themselves and there's a bandwidth situation where you're probably not going to get the attention that you need if an individual is selling 150 homes in a year. Another thing to consider is what you want to look at is communication. How do you want to be communicated with? How do you want to communicate with your agent? How accessible do you want/need them to be? So on and so forth. So make sure that you have somebody that you feel comfortable with and can communicate well with. So if they love texting, and you are a phone call kind of person, make sure that you're on the same page, and that you're going to be able to communicate well with that person throughout the whole process. Buying a home or selling a home can be a very emotional, and very complex, logistically, sort of experience. So you want to make sure you have good open lines of communication. Looking at other things that might be important to you. In an ideal world, how do you build out that perfect agent? Make a list of questions to ask them, like, how many houses have you sold, that are getting multiple offers? How do you handle those multiple offer situations? When you're hiring an agent, picture yourself as really hiring somebody who's going to help you and be on your team. So make sure that the things that are important to you are the questions that you're asking them so that you end up having a great experience. Not to say new or old or whatever the agent's experience is, everybody has a different case and a different scenario that will look perfect for them but don't just hit the first agent you trip over. Because this is an emotional and complex experience, you want to make sure that you have the best one. So if you're looking to buy in the Richmond metro area, I would love to help. Reach out to me and if you want to buy somewhere else, I have great connections with agents all over the country and I'd love to put you in touch with somebody who can get you where you want to be.

"I think I want to sell my house, but I don't feel like doing anything to it. Can I just put a sign in the yard, get it on the market, and be done with this whole thing?" Sometimes when you're a seller, those are the things that come to mind. That's what you really would like to do, right? It's kind of a pain to get your home ready for market. And we're in a seller's market, right? This ought to be easy, your house is pretty nice, just throw a sign in the yard, and let's just get it gone. Before you do that, let's think about the ramifications of putting your home on as is and why you may or may not want to do that. First off, think about the reasons why you might want to put your home on as is. So yeah, that's kind of a pain. But often, people think "I want to go as is", and really, their home doesn't need anything except maybe some paint, some caulk, a little touch-up here and there, it's not that big of a deal. If you don't have time to do some of those things that in a lot of cases can be done by the homeowner, I have a great bunch of resources, handy people and contractors, painters, etc., that can come in and knock those things out in just a couple of days. But let's say it's a financial thing and everything is just a little bit of a bigger deal than the paint, the caulk, and so on. The kitchen is older or whatever. Usually, when you say as is, buyers, especially in this climate of higher interest rates, where buyers are being a little more picky, they're being a little more particular with how they spend their money. When you say as-is people immediately think what's wrong, something's wrong. And it's going to be very expensive for me, and it's going to make them not even come to look at your house. So in most cases, you're going to be better off by just letting it letting it roll. So if you know that you've got some plumbing issues, probably they're going to be, you know, maybe no major, big deal, but it's going to have to be done, you're almost always going to be better off getting someone to do those things before putting your home on the market. Even if you are short on money, and you need to find somebody who's going to let you pay for those things out of the proceeds when you actually sell. But if you do those things ahead of time, then you're going to have a better experience overall. The buyer is going to feel more comfortable purchasing the home and it's going to be a smoother transaction, smoother process, and get it sold faster and usually for more money. So as soon as you say as-is, people immediately think there might be something wrong. But if you just let people have an inspection, remember to disclose if there are actually major issues with your home. If the panel box is sparking, you need to let people know that we are a buyer-beware state, but we do have to disclose material defects or major issues to the home. So if you're aware of them, you have to let people know. And better than letting people know, getting them fixed beforehand. Even if it takes a little bit of money, a little bit of time, a little bit of hassle. Trust me, it'll be worth it in the end. There are certainly cases where selling your home as-is is the way to go. But that's a case-by-case situation. And pricing has a big effect on that too. So if you've just inherited grandma's house, you don't know anything about it. You don't have the time, the bandwidth, the money, the energy to get those things done, as is maybe the way to go, but we're then going to price accordingly. So case by case situation, give me a call, send me a message. Let's set up a time to take a look, talk through it, and see what your options are. If you're in the Richmond metro area, I'd love to help give me a call, and let's get started.