Once you have agreed to all terms and conditions, the Contract of Sale needs to be written and then signed by all parties.
Typically a deposit of 10% is paid by the buyer to seller at the time the Contract of Sale is signed and exchanged. This figure, however, is negotiable and should be one of the terms stipulated in the Contract of Sale. As the Seller, your legal representative usually holds the deposit in trust until settlement. Continue reading
There are four key stages to go through as you close the sale of your property:
* Negotiating the terms of the sale
* Contract of Sale and Deposit
* Final inspection by the buyer(s)
* Settlement Continue reading
You know your own home better than anyone else. Which makes you better equipped than any real estate agent to display the key features of your home and to discuss the joys and pleasures of living there. You are also better placed to talk with interested buyers about the neighbourhood and its history, as well as to make recommendations on schools, shops, local service providers and even restaurants.
Remember, the buyer of your home is moving into a new place where they will want to feel welcomed. The more inviting you can make you can make your community and the surrounding environs, the more likely your property will go to the top of their preference list. Continue reading
Once you are ready to market your own home, invest a couple of hours into writing up a timeline of goals and activities to advance your sale. Similar to a bridal planning schedule, this timeline will ensure you have all those necessary tasks completed on time, within budget and with a minimum of stress. Marketing your own home is usually a huge learning curve for those wanting to save money by cutting out the middleman – so it is essential to plan carefully to avoid frustration, disappointment or costly mistakes. Leave nothing to the last minute and arm yourself with clear communication tools (see sections to come) to ensure there are no deal-breaking misunderstandings or expensive surprises.
Your timeline should be like an iceberg, with 90% of its mass not visible to others. Prospective purchasers will recognise only 10% of your efforts but it is the 90% of planning and preparation that will help sell your property faster, with less hassles and at a price that leaves both vendor and purchaser feeling they made a good deal.
Use the articles in the month of June as a guide to selling your home to establish your marketing timeline, setting short term and longer term goals to marketing decisions and key events along the way. For example, the key event “launch online marketing” will take place after the marketing decision “sell my own home” and “have website built”. The short term goal of “have flyers and promotional literature printed” will be followed by the longer-term goal “write promotional materials”. An Excel spreadsheet or Outlook calendar will help set priorities for your timeline, if you know how to use them. If you prefer the old fashioned way, you can simply write up an estimated timeline in your diary like we all did before the invention of the computer.
Simple brochures and flyers are a fantastic way to market your home. Statistics show that the large majority of people move within a distance of 10km from their current residence. This means that posting flyers on community notice boards in shopping centres and supermarkets, as well as distributing flyers to mailboxes in your surrounding area, are both proven techniques of attracting interested buyers. Both your brochure and your flyers should include links to your own home’s website, where interested buyers can obtain the full details of your property and arrange to make contact with you.
Do not be lured into thinking that all you have to do is list your property for sale online and dozens of buyers will be pounding on your door wanting to have a look inside. While that may happen to a lucky few, smart sellers know that need a combination of simple and proven marketing techniques such as front yard signs, flyers and brochures to supplement their website and attract the right kind of buyer.
Remember, selling your property yourself is easy, but you have to use a mixture of marketing approaches to make buyers aware your property is available.
Read more in the next article…….
Now that you have done your research on pricing, obtained a professional valuation, and made the necessary improvements and fixes to make your home shine, you are ready to have your website built and/or list your property on other real estate sites where many people visit.
Up to now, you have been spending money preparing to sell your house. Now it’s time to save! Continue reading
Though it may still be weeks or months away, now is also a good time to start preparing for your own move into a new home.
You can start with getting quotes from removalists. And, as you de-clutter your house, now is a good time to start packing things in boxes that you will not need until you settle into your new place.
As things start to get urgent once your house is listed and the sale closes, it is best to get ahead of the game by identifying how to forward your mail, which organisations will need to be advised of your new address, and when to schedule the changeover of utilities and phone accounts. Continue reading
That first impression is the key to successful property marketing. Stand across the street and view your house as if seeing it for the first time… then get to work to make sure the next person to see it for the first time will like what they see. Ask a friend to give you their first impressions of your property, inside and out – then invest time, effort and value-adding money into creating a positive impact.
Most buyers decide within the first minute whether or not the property is for them, so make every point a selling point by ensuring your house meets the 3 C’s of selling; Continue reading
There are several aspects of the house sale that need to be planned in advance, before you put your property on the market. These include: