Real-Life Things To Know About Selling Your House

I promised to keep this column updated with every little nuance and lesson I learn along the way, and believe me, there are many.  Here is what I learned in the sale process:

1.  There are eighteen hundred thousand papers to sign.  Just to get started, you sign a multi-page contract with your “listing agent” – the person who sells your house for you.  Think of her as a salesperson who is going to market the property and handle all the negotiations in return for a commission.  “I can do that myself,” you think, especially when you review how much money she will make off the sale of your house.  But in most cases, no, you can’t.  You don’t have enough time or knowledge to negotiate the terms of your deal to your best advantage.  Find an agent you trust, ask a million questions along the way, and make sure you feel like she is informing you and representing you well.  She can help you make decisions by accurately describing what will happen if you choose action A over action B.  Like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book.  But all grown up.

Then when someone puts an offer on your house, they have to do it in writing on a special form (at least in California – is that how it is everywhere?) designating every last little detail.  I had imagined a cloak and dagger process in which someone writes a number on a piece of paper, folds it, and then slides it across the table, never saying the number out loud.  There are forms for termite inspection, real estate agent  agreements, local noise warnings, blah blah etc.  Read them, even though they are insanely boring.  There is probably one little nugget in one of the forms that you disagree with and might want to change or at least consider before signing your acceptance.  When you accept, you can submit the offer subject to a COUNTER offer with your own conditions and pricing.  And so on and so on until you are so tired you fall asleep over your keyboard.

There are ways to get this all done faster.  Our buyer’s agent uses an online signature app so you can sign everything with a click, avoiding the steps of printing, signing, scanning and emailing or faxing, old-school-like.  There is, of course, an app for that, which makes me want to become an agent myself, it’s so cool.

2.  People will come to see your house and poke around in your stuff.  They will ask a lot of questions.  I opted to have Agent Myrna present for all showings, which designates them as “By Appointment Only.”  With Myrna here, people get their answers instantly, without having to have their Realtor call her and then call them back.  Saves a lot of time.  Which is one reason, I think, that our house sold so quickly.  Also, I didn’t have to worry that someone would steal my stuff.

3.  Speaking of showings, this is how our process went.  When I asked Myrna, “So now what happens?”  she gave me the run down.  First she scheduled an “agency caravan” – a special open house for agents from her specific office of a nationwide real estate company.  This usually happens on a Wednesday after the staff meeting, and the agents tend to arrive in groups, hence the “caravan.”  Two days later was the “broker open house,” a showing for any real estate agent who wants to come.  But they come without clients, to preview the property and see if it’s appropriate to show anyone they represent as a buyer.  Then typically the following Sunday you hold the public open house, where any schmo can waltz through your halls tracking mud on your carpets whether they are shopping for a home or not.  We scheduled ours two Sundays out because I was out of town and my poor husband at home with our two little boys could not possibly handle getting the house ready for a public open house on his own.  Because we are already under contract to a buyer, we canceled the open house so I have no war stories from that experience to share with you.

4.  In fact, I have no war stories from the sale yet at all.  We had a handful of private showings and several return appointments that came from the open houses.  Our buyer came from the broker’s open, and returned the next day to show her husband.  The offer came in two days later.  We accepted almost immediately because it was a full price offer with a 40% down payment in cash.  I learned that you need to keep the finance issues in mind when you accept an offer.  You look to see if the person actually has the down payment or if they are waiting to sell their own house – which means the offer is contingent upon their home sale (that’s the situation I am in when I make an offer).  You also pay attention to which company they are using as a lender – some are more difficult than others to work with.