10 Steps to Selling a House

Selling a home is a complex process and a significant transaction. That’s why partnering with a skilled and knowledgeable selling agent is an invaluable move to make. With a professional selling agent on your side, you can make more informed decisions about pricing, advertising in your area, tour preparation, and more. Your agent will not only help you with the planning but their guidance and expertise will help reduce stress and anxiety along the way.

On average, houses in Georgia stay on the market for 72 days until an offer is accepted. From the day of the offer, it takes roughly 35 days to close. That’s about 107 days in the selling phase for the average seller. Plus, you need to factor in the number of days it will take to prepare and optimize your house before it can go on the market.

Knowing current marketing trends will help you form a better idea of how long your house will be on the market and how long you can expect to continue owning your home. Your agent will be able to keep you informed of the trends and what your expectations should be.

Updates, repairs, and improvements will increase your home’s value on the market, enhance its curb appeal, and will likely increase your profits in the sale. Small-scale updates can include replacing shingles, painting walls, updating light fixtures, landscaping, recaulking, or power washing. More costly repairs can involve replacing the AC unit, replacing the roof, installing a deck or patio, updating kitchen appliances, renovating the bathroom, or installing new flooring.

Not all of these repairs or upgrades may be necessary, but many can significantly increase the value of your home.

It’s hard to know how to price your home without expert advice and guidance. Your agent will prepare a comparative market analysis (CMA) to help set a reasonable, competitive price for your home. CMAs typically include recent sale prices of other similar homes sold in your community. Your agent will also consider factors such as square footage, bedroom and bathroom counts, location, renovations and improvements, and more.

The price of your home is critical to attracting buyers and moving your house along to a closing date. If you price it too high, it can sit on the market for too long. If you price it too low, you may end up losing money in the deal or making house hunters suspicious of its quality and value.

Your agent can help you set pricing and make adjustments as needed.

Your agent can help you list your home on the market and optimize the listing to attract the most buyers to your home. Professional photos and well-crafted but honest descriptions can entice buyers to check it out, increasing your likelihood of moving the sale forward.

Your listing should focus on key attributes and quality selling points, recent upgrades, and specific details about the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, and more. Your agent will help you optimize the content in the listing to make it pop as much as possible without exaggerating or getting frivolous.

Once the listing is ready, your agent will post it on multiple listing sites, including the MLS, real estate websites, and social media platforms. They can also share it with potential buyers or fellow agents to share with their clients, generating even more interest among buyers.

Nothing beats a first impression, so the way to stage your home for tours is crucial. You want people to feel welcome when they enter your house, but you don’t want it to look "lived in." It should have a clean, neutral feel to it to help potential buyers envision themselves living there.

Deep-clean everything, declutter every room, remove personal items, organize rooms and storage spaces, rearrange furniture if necessary, and freshen up rooms with new bedding. Whatever you need to do to create a clean, welcoming, and attractive environment, be sure to do it.

You don’t have to worry about coordinating or arranging tours–that’s your agent’s job–but you need to make sure your house is ready for people to walk through.

As buyers tour your home, ideally, offers will start coming in. Depending on your priorities, you can accept the first best offer or hold off for a better offer to come along. You can also propose a counteroffer, negotiating until you reach an agreement that you want to move forward with.

Your agent will help you evaluate offers and think through your options so that you select the best offer available.

It’s on the buyer to order an inspection and an appraisal of your home to ensure they are not overpaying for the home or are not buying a home with significant flaws.

Often, if the inspection reveals flaws or needed repairs, the buyer will ask the seller to make the repairs or lower the asking price of the home. Should this happen, you are not obligated to agree to either option. However, if you deny the buyer’s requests for correction or improvement, the buyer will have the right to end the purchase agreement and restart their house-hunting journey, leaving you to continue marketing your home.

Sellers in Georgia must disclose certain information to buyers prior to closing, revealing problems that could affect the home’s value or quality. Usually, your agent will ask you to fill out a property disclosure statement that requires you to answer questions like "When was the house built?" "When was the roof replaced?" "How old is the AC unit?" etc.

Your agent will ensure you are providing all the appropriate disclosures and signing all the proper paperwork.

If you make it through the due diligence phase and the disclosures phase with the deal still on, you are well on your way to closing. At closing, you and your agent, the buyer and their agent, and the real estate attorney will meet to execute documents, transfer the title, exchange funds, and hand over the keys. Once it’s all said and done, the buyer will walk away as a new homeowner, and you’ll walk away with the money from the sale.