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Seller's Guide

Everything you need to know about putting your home on the market, accepting an offer, and closing on your home.

A Step-by-Step First Time Seller's Guide

Putting your home on the market can be a stressful process, especially when you don’t know what to expect. Fortunately, with the help of an experienced team of real estate agents and this easy to follow guide, you can smoothly complete the process. Following these steps will help you prepare so you can get organized and sell your home for the best price possible.​​​​​​​

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Step 1: Understand Why You're Selling

What do you want to accomplish with the sale of your home? Do you want to make a certain amount of money that you can put toward a larger or nicer home? Do you need to sell it as soon as possible to facilitate a move to a new city or area? Once you understand your needs, you can better craft your offer. For example, if you need to sell quickly, you might want to price your home lower than if your goal is to make a certain profit margin. Make sure you convey these needs to your team of real estate agents once you choose one so they can adjust your selling price accordingly.

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Step 2: Determine Selling Price

Knowing how to price your home is one of the most important parts of the selling process. When you set a fair price in the beginning, you’ll get the most interest from other real estate agents and prospective buyers. Overpricing your home could lead to reduced interest, and underpricing leads to receiving less than what your home is worth. Working with a team of real estate agents is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. A team of real estate agents with experience can determine what other comparable homes are selling for, evaluate the current market, and may even suggest a home appraisal.

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Step 3: Start Preparations

If you’ve kept your home in showroom condition since you’ve lived in it, you’re in the minority of homeowners. Once you price your home, it’s time to start getting it ready to be shown to potential buyers. This includes getting rid of clutter, depersonalizing the space so that buyers can envision themselves in the space, making any small repairs, and doing a deep clean to make sure your home is in pristine condition.

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Step 4: Develop a Marketing Strategy

We will develop a marketing strategy that is perfect for advertising your home. This involves listing the home and then driving the right people to that listing through social media campaigns, agent-to-agent referrals, traditional media, or SEO advertising. Our team creates a marketing campaign that aims to get the most possible traffic to your listing in the first three weeks after becoming a client.

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Step 5: Evaluate Offers

Receiving an offer is an exciting part of the process, but it doesn’t mean the journey is over. We will evaluate each offer and make sure the party making the offer is prequalified or pre-approved by a mortgage lender and that their offer is acceptable to you. If the offer is too low, you can make a counter-offer or offer other ways to bridge the gap, such as covering some or all of the closing costs, making repairs, adjusting the move-in date, or leaving some appliances or fixtures for the new buyer.

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Step 6: Accept an Offer

Once we deem the offer is acceptable, we will review the proposed contract to make sure it’s all in order and includes the necessary components such as deposit amount, down payment, financing, inspection rights and repair allowances, contingencies, settlement date, and a list of fees and who will pay them. When both parties have agreed to the term, a final contract will be prepared by your team of real estate agents.

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Step 7: Get Ready to Close

You have accepted an offer and are now very close to the end of your selling journey. But first, you and the buyer must make a list of what needs to be done before closing. In some cases, your home may need to be formally inspected, surveyed, and appraised. In other cases, major or minor repairs will need to be made before the house can close. We will head up efforts to develop and execute this list, get each action item paid for by the correct party, and make sure everything is in order by the closing date. A few days before the closing date, we will call the company closing the transaction to make sure everything is ready to go. If you haven’t done so already, you also need to make arrangements to move out of the home so the new buyer can take possession.

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Step 8: Close

You’ve reached the last step in the seller’s process. When you close on a home you are selling, you are legally transferring ownership of the property to the new buyer. We will meet with the company closing the transaction to sign the final paperwork and go over any issues that have not yet been taken care of. During this time, you can also make plans with your team of real estate agents to handle final details such as canceling utilities, cable, and lawn or trash services, changing the name on accounts that the new owner is retaining and ensuring the new owner has instructions for all appliances that will remain in the home.

Congratulations!

Once you have sold your home, you’re free to take the next step on your journey. Whether this is relocating to a new city, moving into a larger home, or downsizing and enjoying your life as empty-nesters, knowing all your selling responsibilities have been taken care of will help you achieve peace of mind for your new path.

Our Testimonials

See why our clients love working with us.
Buyer & Seller

Buyer & Seller

Jane has sold our last two houses (and helped us buy the second), and all three transactions were great because of her expertise and superior skill. She was able to negotiate great prices for the sales, mainly because of her un...
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Seller

Seller

Jane helped me sell my house in Saint Francis Wood in 2020. I found her to be an experienced professional who has expert knowledge of the neighborhood and real estate business. Her experience and responsive communication allowe...
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Buyers & Sellers

Buyers & Sellers

Jane is absolutely fantastic. She is a great partner with the best instincts on timing, price, and staging (for those selling). She works extremely hard for her clients and has been our lucky charm for the last several years of...
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Buyer & Seller

Buyer & Seller

Jane was the perfect buyer's agent when we bought our house and the perfect seller's agent when we sold it 7 years later. Her expertise on marketing, staging, pricing, and her network of buyers and sellers make her the go-to re...
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Seller

Seller

I would hire Jane again, and again, and again. Characteristics: Peerless understanding of neighborhood market dynamics, an exacting eye for what makes a property irresistible to buyers, unshakeable confidence in the face of all...
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Buyer

Buyer

No need to keep searching, Jane is it! Having Jane on our side every step of the process bolstered our confidence in finding our dream home. For us, first-time home buyers, Jane was patient and gracious in answering all our que...
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Seller

Seller

From the moment I met Jane, I knew she was the one that could sell my house for the best price possible. What captivated me about Jane is her unwavering confidence, levelheadedness, professionalism, and knowledge about every st...
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Seller

Seller

Jane exemplifies everything we wanted in a real estate agent. When deciding to sell our family home, my wife and I wanted someone that was analytical, experienced, well-prepared, talented at sales, and creative. Jane excelled i...
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Seller

Seller

When my sister and I agreed to sell our father’s SF home, the main challenges arose from each living across the country in different states and from the pandemic severely limiting our willingness to travel. After my sister aske...
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Buyers

Buyers

Jane is the best. She is knowledgeable and a great communicator. She works up a plan for how to find property, and then she is tenacious in bringing that plan to fruition. She helped us find a new family home, and she had us re...
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Seller

Seller

Jane is an excellent realtor in every way. I was the trustee of my cousin's estate and chose Jane as my agent to sell my cousin's home. From her analysis of the property to her hands-on approach for improvements which enhance t...
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Buyers & Sellers

Buyers & Sellers

Jane helped us buy our new home and sell our existing home. Her local knowledge is excellent. Jane has a fantastic feel for pricing both on the sales and buying side, so she was able to find a great opportunity to upgrade our l...
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Sellers

Sellers

Jane is one of the best agents you can find in the area. She is professional, understanding the market by numbers. With her excellent communication skills, we had a very successful sale. - Wilson and Rita
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Seller

Seller

All I can say is, if you want the best in the business, Jane is definitely the person that will get it done for you! When the time came to sell our home, we only thought of Jane. Our children attended the same grammar school, a...
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Seller

Seller

Jane was the best decision we made in the process of selling our home that we had lived in for 22 years. Choosing her as our selling agent made the process not only streamlined and straightforward but actually enjoyable. Her pe...
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Seller

Seller

Choosing Jane to sell our family home was the best decision I could have made. Jane made the whole process so smooth by handling every aspect from start to end. She was knowledgeable, professional, organized, on schedule, and w...
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Buyer & Seller

Buyer & Seller

Jane has a deep understanding of the local market and the wisdom to guide toward successful outcomes on both the buy and sell side. She is meticulous and driven to get the job done and done right, including working over evening...
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Seller

Seller

We interviewed 2 other SF top agents, and they all suggested listing low to sell. Jane was different, and she was very confident to get us top value. We owned our West Portal house for a short 3.75 years, but spent 10+ months u...
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Buyer

Buyer

We had a great experience working with Jane to buy our home. We were focused on two specific neighborhoods (St. Francis Wood and West Portal) and chose Jane for her deep expertise and presence in those areas. She proved to be t...
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Sellers

Sellers

Jane’s mastery in San Francisco real estate — and particularly in the St. Francis Wood community — is unsurpassed. Her expertise and experience includes a wealth of connections with buyers and sellers and a keen understanding o...
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