Home Buying and Selling Guide for the Spring Real Estate Rush
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Spring home selling and buying season is approaching! Below is a guide for both sellers and buyers to prepare for the process!
For Sellers:
You’ve decided to sell you home! I know that sometimes this isn’t an easy decision and can feel overwhelming at first. Don’t worry, though, because I can talk you through it! Finding a real estate agent and an attorney to guide you through this process should be the first move you make. You want people on your team who can guide you through this, are always available to answer your questions and can ease any stress that comes up. Ask around, do your research, and often times if you have an agent you trust they can point you towards an attorney or vice versa.
The next item on your “to do” list should be getting your home ready to show. Whether you’d like to upgrade your kitchen or bathroom or just make some minor repairs here and there, now is the time to get started. Making a checklist is a good first step. After repairs comes the cleaning and organizing. If your home is especially cluttered you may want to put some things in storage. Buyers want to see your space not your stuff. Staging comes next. Photo stylist and real estate agent, Brice Gaillard, wrote a blog for us years ago. Read her 5 Tips on Staging Your Home to Sell. Once you have all of this complete, your home is ready to show!
Good news for anyone selling and planning on purchasing a space in Brooklyn…we are moving into a trading up market. What does this mean for sellers? The Fallon Team breaks it all down in their RC blog Trading up: How to get the Best Deals in a Buyer’s Market.
For Buyers:
The very first thing every prospective buyer needs to do is to get their finances together and ask yourself “are you really ready to buy?”. You don’t want to get in over your head with a space you can’t actually afford. Figuring out your budget and getting pre-approved for a loan will make you feel confident going into open house season. You’ll be able to target homes that are right for you. Read RC agent Jane Herro’s blog Pre-Qualification vs. Pre-Approval to learn more about this important process. Another great resource for learning about the financial end of home buying is through our friend and mortgage professional Mark Maimon’s Linkedin articles. There are many moving parts when it comes to financing then purchasing a home and Mark breaks it all down for us. He tackles everything from tips to obtaining a loan to locking in interest rates.
Next on the docket would be finding a buyer’s agent. RC’s Francesca Girardi wrote a blog post detailing why this is a very important step. You could go into it alone but then you’d have no one on your side to negotiate, advise you or inform you about the process. The seller has an agent to protect their interests and you should have one to protect yours.
Now we get to the fun stuff- the open house! We’ve got a great Open House Guide that suggests questions you should ask and gives you an idea of what to expect. It can be very exciting walking into a space that may be your future home but keeping your head straight and knowing what you want while staying open to changes in your vision can help you remain calm and focused. Once you’ve found your dream home and decide to go for it, your buyer’s agent will navigate you through the twists and turns of this sometimes complicated process.
Contact us to discuss any questions you might have about buying or selling this season!