Selling your home: Our guide to a successful sale

by Tracy Sichterman

HOW WE WORK FOR SELLERS

Whether your property is in the hills or the flats—and anywhere from Oakland to Richmond, and from Emeryville to Lafayette—we’re here to serve you. Berkeley Hills Realty has small-company ethics and a big world view, and it offers exceptional resources to our seller clients. Our agents use a superior web presence and effective marketing materials to promote our sellers’ properties to their highest potential. Click here to learn how we serve our sellers with local expertise, market knowledge, and technology.

WHAT THE SELLER PAYS

The seller can generally expect to pay:

Real estate commission
Document preparation fee for deed
County transfer tax and half of the city transfer tax
Loan reconveyance fees
Payoff of all loans in seller’s name
Termite inspection (termite repairs are negotiable)
Zone disclosure and tax data reports
Home warranty (negotiable)
Any judgments, liens, etc. against the seller
Recording charges for all documents in seller’s name
Property tax proration as of Close of Escrow
Delinquent property taxes
Bonds or assessments, if any
Notary fees
Unpaid homeowners’ association dues, if applicable

PRESENTING YOUR HOME: A CHECKLIST

When preparing your house to look its best, you may find the suggestions on this list helpful. But don’t feel that you have to do all of this yourself. If you need a good painter, for example, or a plumber, gardener, or window washer, we will be happy to refer you to excellent people in the area.

Outdoors:

Lawns are most attractive if they are neat and mowed. Colorful flowers are always a plus. Replace dead plants and keep shrubs pruned.
Clear driveway and steps of debris.
Apply fresh paint as needed, with special attention to the entry area. Replace damaged bricks or wood siding.
If you have a pool, be sure it is scrubbed and clean. Keep the patio area neat and yard furniture in good repair.

Garage:

Store or discard anything you don’t need. Clean floor and tidy shelves.

Living Areas:

Drapes and carpets should be clean.
Paint or touch up as needed.
Electrical systems and plumbing should be in good working order.
Replace any burned-out light bulbs.
Wash windows inside and out.
Fix any loose knobs, sticky doors, and the like.
Clear out clutter, including extra furniture, to maximize the sense of space.

Bathrooms:

Renew the caulking around tubs and showers if needed.
Clean or replace the shower curtain.
Repair leaky faucets.
Make this room really sparkle.

Closets:

Be sure closet lights work and clothes are neatly hung.
Store shoes or other loose items in boxes on the shelves.

Kitchen:

Replace counter tile or grout as needed.
Clean the oven and wax the floor.
Sinks should be clean and shiny.

PREPARE YOUR HOME

Presenting Your House: Getting buyers to linger and dream

There are dozens of small and large steps involved in presenting a house for sale. Ideally, your house will be in perfect, move-in condition, but that is not always practical or possible. Some houses are sold “as is” or as “fixer-uppers,” with little cosmetic improvement. Minor flaws can detract from home value, however, and “staging” a property will often help produce a better sale price. We will be glad to consult with you regarding presentation strategies.

When preparing your house to look its best, you may find our Presenting Your Home Checklist helpful. But don’t feel that you have to do all of this yourself. If you need a good painter, for example, or a plumber, gardener, or window washer, we will be happy to refer you to excellent people in the area.

Staging Your House: The secrets of showing a house to its best advantage

One of the most effective steps in preparing a house for market is staging. True to its theatrical heritage, staging in real estate means making your house look its best when put before that most critical of audiences, the buyer. Staging typically pays for itself in higher sales prices.

Staging starts with the basics: removing old furniture, carpets, and draperies, and improving the landscaping. But it goes far beyond that. The challenge is to create an atmosphere, to create spaces that buyers will want to live in. Staging may involve supplementing or removing existing furniture and art, or furnishing entire rooms. The challenge might be to make small rooms seem larger, large rooms feel cozy, or dark rooms look brighter. So stagers sometimes remove doors, dot the floors with lamps, and increase the wattage of bulbs. They may remove furniture to create a sense of space, or bring in special pieces to accent the house’s charm.

If it isn’t practical to remove a boring sofa, for example, stagers will strategically place attractive pillows on it. They will hang art on the walls and decorate the kitchen. Is the back yard uninteresting? A stager might use a wall of potted plants to turn it into a beautiful garden—and hide an ugly fence in the process.

Whether it involves furniture or feng shui, good staging has a powerful subliminal effect on buyers. Entering a well-staged house gives you a feeling of order and calm. At bottom, staging is like makeup. Makeup can’t change a person’s worth or character, but it can accent their best features. In the same way, staging brings out a house’s inherent charm. It’s a worthwhile investment, because a well-staged house almost always attracts higher offers.

SET A PRICE

When you are selling your house, setting the right price is key, so experience and knowledge of the market are essential.

At Berkeley Hills we are always tracking and exchanging information about prices. We study comparable listings, check on sale prices, and talk with other agents.Pricing is both an art and a science, because no two properties are exactly alike. There are differences in location, finishes, landscaping, light, and privacy, to name a few.

After assembling all the comparables and hard data, the artistic part of the process comes into play. Our agents use their experience and local knowledge to cultivate reliable insights about pricing.

SALES STRATEGY

You will usually get the most money for your property early in the marketing process. When the house is fresh on the market, the largest number of potential buyers will come to see it, which means that competition among those buyers will be at its peak.

The longer the property sits on the market, the more “stale” it becomes. Fewer people come to see it, they make less attractive offers, and ultimately you get less for the property than if it were priced correctly in the first place.

If you have a million-dollar-plus house, or one that is unique in some distinctive way, pricing is even more important, because the pool of potential buyers is smaller. We will help you choose a listing price that is best for your house in the current market.

Factors that affect the value of your home in today’s market

Location:

Location is the single most important factor in determining the value of your home.

Competition:

Prospective buyers compare your property to competing properties.
Buyers will perceive value based on properties that have sold or are available in the area.

Timing:

Property values are affected by the state of the current real estate market.
As the market cannot be altered by individual sales, a flexible marketing plan should be developed that takes into account current market conditions and the particular features of the property.

Condition:

The condition of the property affects the price and speed of the sale.
Prospective buyers often make purchases based on emotion, so first impressions are very important.
When your house looks its best, buyers’ perception of its value will be maximized.

Price:

Pricing your home properly from the beginning is an important factor in determining how long it will take to sell.