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Tips For Seller's
The Five Step Method To Selling A Home
Step 1: Know why you are selling.
Your motivations play an important role in the process of selling your property. They affect everything from setting a price to deciding how much time and money you'll invest in getting your home ready for selling. For example, what is more important to you: the money you walk away with or the length of time your property is on the market?
Step 2: Find a good real estate agent.
While you can sell your home yourself, selling a home eats up more time and effort than you might expect. A good real estate agent knows the market in your neighborhood. They will supply you with information on past sales, current listings, a marketing plan, and a lot of hard work.
A real estate agent will assist you in making decisions effectively and efficiently. Fill out the Get Help Selling questionnaire and Tina will guide you through the entire process. After receiving the questionnaire, Tina will meet with you, answer your questions, and perform an online market-evaluation of your home, using her laptop, right from the comfort of your living room.
Take advantage of Tina Mak's free special reports: Squeezing Every Last Dollar From Your Home Sale and 29 Essential Tips That Get Homes Sold Fast (And For Top Dollar). These reports provide valuable information and strategies to assist you when you decide to sell your home. Even if you are not planning to sell currently, you should know what's in these reports. They will guide you when making improvements to your property and help you plan ahead for when you eventually do decide to sell your home.
Step 3: Determine the initial offering price.
Settling on an offering price should not be done lightly. Once you've set your price, you've told the buyer the absolute maximum they have to pay for your home. The trick for the seller is to get a selling price as close to the offering price as possible. If you start out by pricing too high, you might not be taken seriously by prospective buyers and their agents. A price too low can result in selling for much less than you had hoped for. The most common way to set a value is to look at homes that have sold in your neighborhood within the last twelve months, as well as those now on the market. This is how prospective buyers will assess the worth of your home.
Step 4: Negotiate an offer.
You will enjoy the negotiation process a lot more if you let go of the emotions you've built up around your home and approach negotiations in a detached, businesslike manner. An unacceptably low offer should not be taken personally or seriously. Instead, just counter the offer and let the buyer know that their first offer isn't seen as a very serious one.
Once you've negotiated an offer, the best way to avoid problems is to make sure that all terms, costs, and responsibilities are spelled out in the contract of sale. A contract should include the date it was made, the names of the parties involved in the transaction, the address of the property being sold, the purchase price, where deposit monies will be held, the date for loan approval, the date and place of closing, type of deed, any contingencies that remain to be settled, and whether there is any personal property to be included (or not included) in the sale.
Step 5: Congratulate yourself!
Once the buyer removes all subject clauses (such as mortgage approval, building inspection, etc.), your house is sold. Congratulations on a job well done!
Buying a home is first and foremost an emotional commitmen t, especially for first time buyers. You may have a long list of logical reasons your home is a good buy, but a buyer is reacting emotionally to what he or she is seeing.
Unless your home is in mint condition (or you are selling it as a "fixer-upper"), there is probably a long list of repair or remodeling projects to consider. Whatever you do, the key lies in doing it well. A job done poorly can do more harm than good and can actually reduce the value of your home.
There are three critical areas in which you can make improvements to your home that have significant impact on how buyers perceive the quality of your property. These are:
- Landscaping and Curbs
Many buyers form their first opinions about your home before they step out of their car. Take a good, hard look at the landscaping and curbs around your home. If you can improve the attractiveness of these two areas without spending a lot of money, you can easily add five to ten percent to the value of your home.
- Paint
Put simply, a coat of paint can literally make the difference between a sale or no sale.
- Kitchen and Bathroom
Two rooms consistently make and break sales: kitchen and bathroom. If you can update your kitchen and make your bathrooms sparkle you've gone a long way towards selling your home at a better price.
If a person is acting on behalf of another as a power of attorney, whenever they sign title transfer documents they must sign in the exact name(s) as registered in the existing title search documents. If they do not, the Vancouver Land Title Office will reject the transfer and the sale cannot be completed. This will delay you taking possession of the property and can cause additional expenses and penalties. Always consult your lawyer when dealing with persons acting through a power of attorney.
In order to avoid money being held by Revenue Canada after completing the sale of your property, a T2062 Clearance Certificate is required. To apply to Revenue Canada for a T2062 Clearance Certificate, the information required is as follows:
- Personal information including date of birth, overseas address, last Canadian personal income tax return filed, and the date you left Canada (if applicable).
- Costs and additions to the property. This is best supported by the statement of adjustments at the time of purchase.
- Use of the property since purchase. If used personally, be prepared to provide information proving your occupancy. (Ex. hydro bills, phone bills, etc.)
- If the property was used for rental, you will need to provide the Revenue Canada withholding tax account number and NR6 undertaking account number. If you have a property manager, they
 should be able to provide this information for you. Additionally, you will need the most recently filed tax return on the property.
- Interim agreement showing the purchaser's personal information, the completion date of the sale, and the agreed price.
- If there is a mortgage on the property, you will need to provide the balance owing.
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