Page 16 - SellerGuide

Selling Your Home
The big day is here! You’ve worked hard to make your home shine, and our team has worked hard to market your home as best as we can. Now it’s actually time to sell it. Before your home is listed, you’ll get an introduction to a scheduling tool we use called “Showing Time”. This is a completely streamlined was of
scheduling and managing appointments for buyers to see your home. Fortunately this feature is integrated with our MLS which allows for potential buyers and their agents to schedule showings directly. The associated app allows you to approve, deny, and cancel any showings on your home. In the current environment, which we’ve already talked about as being a strong seller’s market, it isn’t uncommon for as many as dozen or more showing requests to be made by the first weekend alone. It’s very important that you make every effort possible to make your home as available as possible to any potential buyers. This means minimizing or eliminating any blackout periods (periods where you won’t allow showings) and being as flexible as possible. Fortunately, this maximizes your chances of getting an interested buyer quickly. As of the first quarter of 2022, average days on market for the greater Sacramento area is around 20 days. In some areas like the 95742 zip code it’s around 18 days and was even as low as 6 days during the summer of 2021. Although being as flexible as possible can sometimes be inconvenient, it really is the best way to maximize your chances of securing a great offer quickly.
One way to alleviate some of the stress of providing so many showing appointments is for us to host an open house. Open house’s are using held during the weekend in the middle of the day, and allow anyone to come and view the home without an appointment. These are especially because as host, we are present in the home and can answer any questions buyers or their agents may have.
If all goes well, we will have offers in hand ready for review before you know it. Depending on a number of factors, we may decide to review offers as they come in, or simply set a cut-off time for all offers to be submitted by, and then review them all at once. We’ll usually set a cut-off when it’s expected that we’ll be receiving multiple offers in a short period of time, so setting one time to review all of them makes it much more manageable.
When it comes to reviewing offers, it’s easy to get excited and distracted by price alone. Remember that an offer contains many different terms, all of which are negotiable. Things like contingency periods, earnest money deposit, the type of financing, proof of funds, etc are all very important when considering the strongest offer. For instance, a very high offer price may not mean much if an appraisal contingency remains intact, or the buyer can’t show proof of funds to support such a strong offer. Reviewing offers can be nuanced and very complicated. When mistakes are made or important details missed, it can be costly and time consuming. This is just one of the many reasons why working with a seasoned professional is very important.
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