Selling Your Home For A Great Price

How Do You Sell Your Home For A Great Price?

This is a question on the minds of many fathers. I have done this recently, and I will share my perspective and experience with making this happen in my own life.

Some of the topics we will be discussing are:

1.  Knowing Your Local Market

2. Having A Great Team Working For You

3. Making Your Property Look Its Best

Also, If there is a topic you are interested in me talking about or have questions about, please check out my website at brianjknight.com and contact me there. Or, I would love to connect with you on Facebook and feel free to join my group called Thriving Fatherhood where I offer more on how to thrive in fatherhood. 

Transcript

Welcome to the Thriving Fatherhood Podcast, where we are living and working in the trenches to go from surviving to thriving in this mission field called fatherhood. 

My name is Brian Knight. I am a father of three and have been married for over eight years now. It has been a few months since our last episode, and I am ready to get back in the saddle and get an episode out every week for you guys. So, a lot has happened since we last talked in April. We closed on our new home in Summers Corner here in Summerville, sold our previous home, moved my mother-in-law in with us, and I started a new job as a health coach at the Veterans Administration.  More to come on all this. 

I have caught myself saying this to my wife and other close family members, but the last six months have been the busy time of my forty-five years on this planet. But it has been a blessing in many ways. 

Anyways, let's get on to today’s episode for you guys on selling your home from a father’s perspective and experience.  By the way, this is the second property I have sold. 

1.       Know your local market – why and how.  Why is because you can not always go by what your realtor throws out there. I am not exactly in agreement with how realtors are compensated. Let me explain: If my house is valued at 400K and I do not do my homework, and they decide to list it for 375K. They may sell the home very quickly and get the bulk of their commission, but I will be out of approx. 23K. Now if they list it for 400K, yes, it might take a little longer to sell, but you are getting the total value of your property. You do not know this unless you do your homework. If you disagree with your realtor, then show them your reasons, and they will agree or disagree. Ultimately they are probably going to list it for what you want to list it for unless it is way off what they think it is worth.

One thing I learned is it is not good for a property to sit on the market for too long. According to my realtor, buyers may start to think something is wrong with the property if it has been on the market for too long. Another tip my realtor taught me was to list your property at an even number in increments of 50K, such as 400K, 450K, or 500K. For example, if you list it for 400K, you are getting buyers in the range of 350 to 400K and 400K to 450K. Versus if you listed it at 399K, you would possibly only reach the 350 to 400K buyers.  

Let’s talk a little about how to know your local market. Well, you pull up Zillow or Realtor.com and start looking at your competition and what other properties have sold for in your neighborhood. Roughly, price is determined by square footage, but there could be many other things at play. Has it been updated, landscaping, size of yard, fence, and location? Honestly, it depends on the buyer and what they are looking for in a property. We had a large, very nice playground in the back of our house, and the new buyers loved it. 

                You want to spend some time studying your local market and looking at other properties in your neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods. See what some of these are sold for and are listed for. Personally, I had a number in my head of 399K for my home, and my realtor said he thought I should list it for 400k before I even told him my number. 

The buyer ended up offering 410K for my home but wanted me to pay all closing costs, which is about 10K. My realtor said they must have been short on cash. We counter-offered at 412K and paid closing costs, and they took that. I would have liked to counter with 415K, but after 8 or 9 showings, this was my only offer, so I had to be careful. I thought with as many showings as we had, there would be a bidding war, but I only got one offer, but as my realtor said, that is all it takes to sell your home. Luckily, there were no problems with the buyers financing along the way, and everything closed on time after about 30 days. 

Have a great team working for you: I have already said many good things about my realtor. Yes, I recommend you work with a good realtor over for sale by the owner. I will tell you why. They are masters at marketing your home if you have a good one, and they will help you avoid headaches that you will not see coming. A good realtor should be able to make up for their commission in the price they are able to get you and the headaches you are able to avoid. My realtor was also great for showing me what to focus on and not focus on for maximum value out of my home. They are worth it. You just need to make sure you get a good one and one that has been in the game for a while. 

You will need a great legal team to look over your closing documents. Honestly, I pulled up real estate attorneys and looked for great reviews with a number of them and a practice that was in my local vicinity. It worked out great for me. 

Make your property look its best:  Luckily, during this time, I was out on paternity leave, and I was able to work on both my properties every day.  For my property, I did touch-ups inside, cleaned it top to bottom, and boy, was it dirty in some places. I emptied it completely, fixed everything that needed fixing, pressure-washed it, and cleaned the carpets. Sounds like not so much, but it was a massive undertaking to do this. My wife was taking care of the kids, so I did this mainly on my own. You could pay someone to help you, but I didn’t. 

Now I mentioned that I completely emptied the house. By this time, we were closed on our new home, but we did not want just to dump everything in our new garage and just figure it out later. Since I am the only earner outside the home, they would not have approved me to own two homes. So, yes, our previous home was paid off. This allowed us to move into our new home over the process of a few weeks instead of trying to do it on a weekend. Long story short, there is a huge advantage if you have your current home paid off and you are moving to your new home locally, and you have a lot of stuff to sort through. I will tell you there is nothing like moving to get you motivated to deal with your stuff and make a decision on whether you want to sell it, keep it, donate it, or throw it away.  

Getting a good price for your home is about timing, location, marketing, and presentation. A lot of this you do not have that much control over but some of it you do. It worked out well in this crazy market for us because we sold our old home for about 10k more than what we bought our new home for, which is a good bit larger than our previous home. Now our old home was established, our new home is new construction so there is a lot of work to do to it. One final suggestion my realtor gave me was not to update anything in order to sell the house quicker or get a better price. I had good condition but outdated flooring and countertops; he said do not worry about them. The new buyers will update the home if they want to. They will probably want to pick out something different than what I would think looks the best, so don’t even bother with changing things unless your realtor suggests it.  Also, just be patient during this process, and do not get in a rush to sell your property. One thing I have learned is when I get in a rush, that is a vulnerable time for mistakes and regrets. So, work with a great realtor and be patient. Often a home is our greatest asset, and you deserve to be paid what it is worth.

That is what I have for you today; if you feel this show has been valuable to you, I encourage you to share it with other fathers who could gain some insight from it and wants more thriving in their lives. 

Also, if there is a topic you are interested in me talking about or have questions, please send it to knightbri@gmail.com. You can also check out my website at brianjknight.com, and the private Facebook group called Thriving Fatherhood. 

Also, if you would be interested in working with me or having me mentor you on your journey back from surviving to thriving in fatherhood, then send me an email or reach out to me through my website, and we can set up a call to see if I can help you to thrive more in your fatherhood journey. 

Thank you for listening, and until next week, continue thriving in fatherhood.