Seller guide
Maximize your sale.
Most of what determines your final number is decided before the listing goes live. Here is the order to do it in.
Stage one
Price.
Price from closed sales, not from asking prices
What a neighbor is asking is an opinion. What closed down the street last month is evidence. Only one of those two things is what a buyer's appraiser will look at.
Respect the first two weeks
A listing gets its largest audience when it is new. Price above the evidence and you spend that window proving it, then reduce from a visibly weaker position with a stale listing.
Know what the appraisal will support
If your buyer is financing, the lender's appraiser has to justify the price. A number the comparables cannot support becomes a renegotiation after you have already taken the house off the market.
Stage two
Prepare — without overspending.
Do the cheap things ruthlessly
Declutter, deep clean, fix what sticks or drips, paint anything bold back to neutral, and get the light levels up. This is the best return in the whole process and it costs very little.
Be skeptical about the expensive things
A full kitchen replacement rarely returns what it costs on the sale. Buyers discount dated more gently than most sellers expect — and more gently than a renovation loan costs.
Deal with the known defect
If there is a problem an inspector will certainly find, pricing for it or fixing it beforehand is almost always better than having it discovered mid-contract, when it becomes a negotiation you are losing.
Treat the photographs as the first showing
Nearly every buyer decides whether to visit from a phone screen. Clear the counters, open the blinds, and have it photographed properly in good light.
Stage three
Market, negotiate, close.
Market in both languages
In these communities a meaningful share of ready buyers are Spanish-speaking. A listing written only in English is simply invisible to some of the people who would have paid the most for it.
Make it easy to see
Restrictive showing windows cost offers. The two weeks of inconvenience are the price of the outcome you want.
Read offers for the net, not the headline
Closing cost credits, concessions, contingencies, financing type and closing date all change what you actually receive and how likely it is to complete. The highest number is not always the best offer.
Respond to the inspection proportionately
Buyers are entitled to raise real issues. Conceding on everything invites more; conceding on nothing loses deals over items that cost less than a week back on the market.
Keep the file moving
Attorney review, appraisal and the buyer's underwriting run in parallel. Most delayed closings are caused by someone waiting on a document nobody chased.
Start with what your home is actually worth.
A free market analysis, with the comparable sales attached so you can check the reasoning yourself.