Commercial Real Estate Los Angeles Regal Commercial

Helpful Information for Investors

Whether you’re planning to sell your proeprty in the next few months or just studying up for that eventuality, there’s no time like now to prepare. If buying a property seems complicated, selling involves even more responsibilities and expenses.

Here are some common steps to selling your property:

1. Prepare Your Property for Sale

Well before you’re ready to plant that “For Sale” sign on the front door, there is work to be done to prepare your property for sale.

Remember how keen your eye was to every small detail and defect in the property you saw as a buyer? Everything will be exposed to a potential buyer with that same keen eye.

Start making the obvious repairs today – even if you don’t plan to sell until a year from now. These repairs can cost money and take time.

Inside and outside, start reducing the clutter. When it comes time to show your property, less will mean more. Show buyers the property's potentials. So downsize now; it not only will make the preparation for showing your property easier.

2. Find a Real Estate Professional

If you’ve been through the property-buying process, you already know how complicated the real estate business can be. While you can opt to sell your property yourself, it can be time-consuming and often not worth the money saved on commissions.

However, if you do hire a real estate professional as your selling agent, do your homework. Ask friends and family for recommendations, interview several candidates, attend a few open property showings and watch the professional in action. Do you think this person would present your property well to potential clients?

When interviewing me or another candidate, ask him or her to prepare a “comparative marketing analysis” for your property. This might include a demographic of the neighborhood, the quality of schools in the area and a suggested list price for the property.

If you’ve chosen me or another real estate professional to help sell your property, you’ll have to sign a contract stating that you’ll work solely with them for a designated number of months, often between one and six months. This means no other real estate professional will be allowed to sell your home on your behalf during this time.

So put some thought into the professional you choose and if you decide to choose me, I will help you sell your property to a qualified buyer for the highest market price in the quickest, most convienent timeline.

3. Get Your Paperwork Together

After you sign the Listing Agreement with me she will need a lot of documents from you to prepare your property for sale. Among the things she will want to see are:

• Pay-off Notice: A letter to the lender stating intention to payoff the mortgage.
• Assessments or Easements: If there’s a tax assessment or easement on the property, documents stating such will have to be included in the purchase contract.
• Property Taxes: Proof of property taxes paid.
• Utilities: Provide a record of the past 12 months’ utility bills.

4. Price Your Property

There are a number of factors that will affect the success of your property sale. They include: location of the property, interest rates, economic conditions, time of year, condition of the property, marketing the property, terms of the sale and accessibility to the property.

Some of these are not within your or my control – location of the property, interest rates, economic conditions. The other factors are items you should discuss with me to determine what would benefit the sale of this property most.

For example, marketing your property in more innovative ways, such as on an Internet site like this one, may broaden the pool of potential buyers. If you can, waiting for a good time to sell your property – spring or fall, the most popularly property buying times – also may help it sell faster except in this Seller's market, anytime is a good time. And pricing the property properly can make a huge difference in whether a property is snapped up within the first several weeks of listing or sits on the market for more than a year.

To price a property properly, you and I will have to study the local market, research comparable properties and consider current market conditions. This is where the “comparative marketing analysis” you requested when interviewing for a listing agent will come in handy as a place to start.

Now check around your neighborhood, your newspaper and Internet sites like this one for:
• Your competition: Are there many properties just like yours for sale in your area right now?
• Listing prices: What are other properties like yours listing for?
• Selling prices: What are other properties like yours selling for?

Based on these findings, I have the experience to help you price your property at the right price for a sale that benefits you.

5. Market Your Property

Products that sell well usually have a good marketing strategy. The same can be said for your property. Work with me to decide where you want to advertise. Will the property be advertised only with a yard sign? Do you want your property listed for sale not only in newspapers but also on Internet sites like this one? When can you make your property available for a showing?

When a potential buyer arrives for an showing or drives by and sees the for sale sign, you’ll want to provide a property profile handout that they can take with them. Decide what information should be included in the description of your property that will make it a must-see – and hopefully, a must-buy. Include one or more photos of the property to showcase the most appealing features of your property and help remind potential buyers of what they saw as they visit property after property.

I encourage you to work with me to discuss what the features and benefits of your property are so that they can be highlighted and adequately represented.

6. Prepare Your Property for Showing

Now that you've decided with me on the market price and how you will market your property now there’s little time left to get your proeprty ready for visitors. Now is the time to put on the finishing touches, just like that quick housecleaning you do before company comes over for dinner. Now leave the work to me. Try to be away from the property during the showing.

7. Respond to an Offer

Depending on market conditions, you may receive one or more offers for your property from interested buyers. Each offer will include the proposed offer price, proposed closing date, proposed move-in date, financing, and contingencies that may include an appraisal or sale of the buyers’ current property. Let me help you sort through the variables to determine whether you should accept, counter-offer or reject the offer.

If there are multiple offers, each offer will be presented to you in the order registered. You don’t need to decide anything until after you’ve seen all the offers. If you do accept or counter more than one offer, you are required to establish an order of precedence noting which is the primary offer, followed by the backups in order. This will help you avoid selling the property to more than one buyer.

8. Complete the Settlement

Once you have accepted an offer to buy your property, expect to make your property available to a facility inspector, a termite inspector, an appraiser and other inspectors. After seeing the results of the inspections, the buyer may request additional work is completed before purchase, such as repairing a damaged roof or fixing a leaky faucet. You should consult with me to determine whether to comply with the buyer’s request or risk losing this offer.

During this flurry of activity, try to keep your property in show condition. The deal has not closed and still may fall through, which may mean showing your property to more potential buyers.

In the meantime, the buyer is working with a lender to secure a loan for the purchase. When the buyer has written loan approval, a closing date can be set.

There will be a final walk-through before all signatures are collected and the deal considered done. The buyer will again survey the property to check that everything is in working condition and, if you had agreed to do so, any additional work requested after inspection is completed.

Congratulations, you’ve sold your property!

Contact Me with ANY Questions You May Have!