Seller's Guide

Everything you need to know about putting your home on the market, accepting an offer, and closing on your home.

A Step-by-Step 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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Step 1: 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 realtor once you choose one so he or she can adjust your selling price accordingly.

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Step 2: Determine 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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Step 3: 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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Step 4: Develop a Marketing Strategy

I 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. My 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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Step 5: 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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Step 6: 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 term, a final contract will be prepared by your agent.

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Step 7: 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. I 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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Step 8: 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 realtor 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.

Our Testimonials

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WALTER D.

WALTER D.

Simon is an amazing REALTOR! He was patient, thorough, and fun, and helped me on every step of my home-buying process. In short, I had a great experience as a first-time homebuyer. Anyone is in good hands with Simon.
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ROBERT B.

ROBERT B.

We highly recommend Simon and his team! Simon was professional, knowledgeable, and accessible, and walked us through every step along the way. He made buying and selling in this crazy market as painless as possible! An 11 out o...
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ELIZABETH V.

ELIZABETH V.

Simon is wonderful to work with. He is one of the best REALTOR. Simon is professional, thorough, and honest, and took his time to understand what our family needed. He genuinely cares about his clients and it shows. Simon respo...
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MISHA G.

MISHA G.

In a shifting time in the market, Simon was able to market our home effectively before we went live and was able to acquire an offer way over any number we were thinking! We could not have asked for anything more and were blown...
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KELSEY D.

KELSEY D.

I worked with Simon as a first-time home buyer and I had the best experience. He was very patient with all of my questions and took me through everything step by step, making sure I understood each part of home buying along the...
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KELLY H.

KELLY H.

Simon and his team were incredible to work with. Simon is very knowledgeable about the market and we appreciated his research and guidance in identifying the best way to price our home. His team of operations supports, photogra...
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NICK A.

NICK A.

After a few weeks of dealing with a kind but fairly lackluster REALTOR, we were extremely lucky to have found Simon. He took the time to work out what we were ultimately after and immediately set out to help us find the perfect...
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ZACK A.

ZACK A.

Simon is the cream of the crop of real estate agents. Friendly, professional, and responsive; he knows DC and the surrounding areas like the back of his hand. He knows the home buying process cold and has a great working relati...
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KELLY G.

KELLY G.

Simon is incredible. I truly wouldn’t work with anyone else - he is responsive, forward-thinking, and most importantly, actually cares about you and your needs. Over the process of buying a home, he became a true friend to me a...
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MONICA V.

MONICA V.

Simon Sarver was my agent and he and his team were amazing. Simon found me a place that wasn’t even listed yet and I got it! I had been looking for months and within a week, Simon found me my new home. This was my first purchas...
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BRUNO G.

BRUNO G.

I would never say this to his face, but Simon is a wonderful person and a gifted REALTOR. We were working with tight timelines, lenders that didn't always cooperate, and a market that wasn't exactly heating up. Simon and his te...
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LINDA-ANN A.

LINDA-ANN A.

Simon was of tremendous help throughout the process of buying my first home. He broke down the whole process into easy steps. He is a great communicator and listens closely to his clients. I loved his professionalism and how he...
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TIM R.

TIM R.

It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Simon through our home selling and buying process. Selling my home could not have gone smoother and not only did I get top dollar without even hitting the market, the process to get t...
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JONATHAN M.

JONATHAN M.

Simon is an amazing agent! I've been holding off buying a house for years. The whole process seemed terrifying to me at first and I was nervous I would commit to something that would not make me happy. Especially after hearing ...
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SVETLANA M.

SVETLANA M.

Simon has been super awesome through our process and went above and beyond in helping us first - to sell our old townhome and second - to find a new one. He was very thoughtful, transparent, and thorough about what to expect fr...
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Alan G.

Alan G.

Simon is a great REALTOR and person! We spent months searching for our dream home in the crazy market and Simon happily showed us every house we wanted and with a huge smile on his face each time. We finally found the right hou...
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ROSE L.

ROSE L.

Simon was my REALTOR when I purchased in May 2022, and I can't recommend him enough. Simon is knowledgeable, thoughtful, and responsive, and his guidance made all the difference in the home-buying process. For example, earlier ...
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ANTHONY P.

ANTHONY P.

I was referred to Simon by a close friend of mine. From our very first discovery conversation on what It was I was looking for, and all the way through closing on my current residence, Simon conducted a consistently professiona...
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DESSIE S.

DESSIE S.

Our experience with Simon is nothing but exceptional! My husband and I started looking for a house during the fall of 2020. Competing against other home buyers in the crazy housing market and after a couple of disappointing exp...
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DERRICK M.

DERRICK M.

It was a pleasure working with Simon from start to finish in the recent sale of my house. Simon made himself available to discuss options, tactics, and the process of selling a home promptly. His knowledge of the housing market...
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