Seller's Guide

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 agent 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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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 Real Estate Agent once you choose one so they can adjust your selling price accordingly.

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Determine The 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 real estate agent is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. An agent 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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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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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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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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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 terms, a final contract will be prepared by your agent.

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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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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 Real Estate Agent 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.

Testimonials

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Andrew

Brent was easy and great to work with. He was super responsive and flexible to our changing needs and requests. Additionally he is knowledgeable and resourceful, if he didn't know the answer to our questions right away he quick...
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Allan

We very much enjoyed working with Brent and would highly recommend! He's a Seattle local and expert in the market, and helped guide us through a challenging spring market. Brent gave us great advice that helped us find and get ...
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James

Brent had excellent local knowledge of the Puget Sound are. He helped me buy a like-new home for less than half a million dollars, which is a rare feat considering how competitive the market is.
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Willis

Brent was amazing for us! He did a phenomenal job selling our house. Brent was patient, kind, and always willing to go the extra mile for us every time. We really appreciated his expertise and were happy with our house sale. We...
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Anonymous

Brent was amazing. I had a compressed timeline due to an unexpected military move and was able to visit the area for only a short time. In less than a week we had looked at houses in several different areas, settled on one, had...
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Anonymous

We can't say enough about how positive our experience was with Brent! Moving from out of state to Washington felt overwhelming at first, but they made the entire process incredibly smooth. Their expertise in the Washington mark...
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Anonymous

Brent was wonderful to work with and always very responsive. He worked tirelessly to show us as many homes as we wanted and helped with all our concerns. He is knowledgeable about homes in general and was a great asset when ass...
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Sommer

Brent was great, he was really on our side when it came to every aspect. He made the whole process very easy and it was the quickest purchase I’ve ever been involved in.
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Anonymous

Brent is an excellent real estate agent. He was readily available to answer all of our questions, no matter how small. We appreciated his constant communication with us during the buying process. He helped us communicate with t...
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Forest

Brent did a very professional job helping us buy a new home. He was extremely helpful through the buying processes and was available to answer all of our real estate questions. He spent time showing us a number of houses in the...
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Dave

Brent was absolutely wonderful to work with. He is super diligent and thoughtful and really understood what kind of home we were looking for. Over several weeks, he was prompt on messaging, always ready to go see a house we wan...
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Seller

We couldn’t be more impressed with Phillip Belenky and the exceptional job he did helping us sell our home in Seattle. From start to finish, he went far above and beyond what we ever expected from a real estate agent. Not only ...
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Lee H.

My wife and I worked with Phillip and Shane to sell my mom’s home, and I can honestly say they did an outstanding job. From the first meeting, Phillip brought a calm, capable energy to the table and took complete ownership of a...
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Deanna B.

We've had the privilege of working with Phillip Belenky since 2011, completing eight real estate transactions together. Over the years, Phillip has consistently demonstrated meticulous attention to detail, professionalism, and ...
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Jonathan Houtzer

Very friendly and knowledgeably about many different aspects of real estate. Willing to go the extra mile to accommodate our schedule to see homes and research questions we may have had. Made what could have been a very stressf...
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Dr. Gary Rutledge

Allison's extensive knowledge, professional conduct and personal attention to us made the purchase of our new home much easier than we expected. She is the best residential rea l estate agent we have ever worked with and would ...
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Merle MacFarlane

Allison was thorough and communicated just the right amount.
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Deborah Galle

Allison Yena provided everything I needed in the way of completion of my real estate deal. She was very informative, personable, and professional. I will definitely tell my friends and family about her when they are need of a r...
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Rick Stockmann

Soup to nuts service. Replied to all questions same day. Made everything extremely convenient and fun.
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Prakash Moorthy

Professionalism, keeping interest of buyers in mind, going above and beyond the call of duty.
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