Sellers

Clean and Declutter

If you’re thinking about putting your home on the market, give it a deep clean in preparation for potential buyers who may visit for an in-person tour. You should also declutter the entire space. That’s because you want potential buyers to envision themselves — and not your junk — in the home. Decluttering reveals a room’s dimensions, architectural details and natural light, according to REALTOR® Magazine.
Of all the updates you can make in preparation for a resale, simply cleaning your home is among the least expensive, and it has a big impact. If you do it yourself, you’ll only need to foot the bill for cleaning supplies. If you decide to have your home professionally cleaned, you can expect prices to range from $100 to $180 per hour for a cleaning service, according to HomeAdvisorcom. The fee will vary based on the size, location and condition of your home.

Set the Right Price

Your agent should provide you with a comparative market analysis, which examines the selling prices of homes similar to yours in size, amenities and location. You’ll want to use it as a guide to help set your asking price. If it’s a seller’s market (meaning the demand is strong, but the supply is insufficient) and home prices continue to rise, you may get multiple bids that drive up your original list price. If buyers have the advantage and home prices are flattening or declining, you may have to negotiate a lower sale price or offer to pay

Be Prepared to Disclose Your Home's Defects

It’s the law in most places to disclose knowledge of any material defects. You may be required to reveal known problems of your home’s roof, walls, foundation, basement, plumbing, heating and electrical systems, as well as past pest problems and the presence of hazardous materials such as radon, lead paint and asbestos. Your state may even require you to fill out a standard disclosure form.
Honesty is always the best policy.

When Buyers Show Up, Leave!

So you’ve done your best to prepare your home for sale: You’ve cleaned, decluttered, repaired and staged. Now, when it’s being shown, leave the premises. You want the buyers to feel comfortable looking around your house, not wondering where they’ll encounter you lurking next.
If they have any questions, their agent will call yours. Besides, when you meet with buyers face-to-face, you might inadvertently reveal how motivated you are to sell and other clues that erode your negotiating power. With social distancing, it’s probably safer not to be there, too.

Between sold house and new home

You may face the dilemma of wanting to buy your next home before having sold your previous one. Where will you get the money to make a down payment and close on the new home? You have a couple of options:
You can make your purchase offer contingent on the sale of your current home. Sellers are most likely to accept the contingency if the local market is hot and your previous home is likely to sell quickly. (However, if they have received multiple offers, they may not accept an offer with any contingencies.)

Profit From a Home Sale

If you own and live in a home for a total of 24 months within the five years prior to the date of sale, you won’t owe taxes on up to $250,000 in home-sale profits if single, or $500,000 in profits if married filing jointly. The home must be your main home (for criteria, see IRS Publication 23, Selling Your Home). That means most homeowners won’t pay a dime to Uncle Sam on their home-sale profits. If you’re married and filing jointly, only one spouse must meet the ownership test (one of you owned the home for a total of 24 months within the five years prior to the date of sale), but both of you must meet the residence test (you both lived in the home for at least 24 months). If you inherit a home, you’ll only owe taxes on the stepped-up basis of the home. For exceptions to this rule (notably for divorced spouses, widows or widowers and members of the uniformed services, foreign service, intelligence agencies or Peace Corps on qualified, extended duty), the IRS Publication 523 provides guidance: You may qualify for a partial exclusion of any gain if the main reason for your home sale was a change in workplace location, a health issue, or an unforeseeable event.

AVOID …

Selling your home can be surprisingly time-consuming and emotionally challenging. It can feel like an invasion of privacy when strangers open your closets and poke around. They will openly criticize your home and your decorating abilities, and to top it all off, they will offer With no experience and a complex transaction on your hands, it’s easy for home sellers to mistakes. The best way to sell a house comes down to a few basics:

Keep your emotions in check and stay focused on the business aspect.
Hire an agent. It’ll cost you in commission, but it takes the guesswork out of selling.
Set a reasonable price.
Keep the time of year in mind and avoid the winter months if possible.
Prepare for the sale. Your home must look its best to compete.
Take time over your listing and add lots of high-quality photographs, inside and out.
DO … get a licensed real estate agent … 2 years of ..sue..