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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 team of real estate agents 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 team of real estate agents once you choose one so they 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 team of real estate agent is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. A team of real estate 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

We 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. Our 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 team of real estate agents.

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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. We 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 team of real estate agents 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.

The Vandenborn Group has consistently been a top producer in Central Oregon, let us show you why. With our extensive marketing strategies and proven results let us be your advocate and sell your home.  Our goal is to sell your home for the best price possible in the shortest amount of time. With our vast reach and network, we will find the right buyer for your home. Our commitment to you is to work on your behalf with loyalty, integrity & professionalism: all with your best interest top of mind.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

I would highly recommend Natalie and Trish. They were very professional, communicative, and friendly. Natalie helped my family and I find the home we were looking for and answered any questions we had during the process in a timely manner.

— Buyer & Seller

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Natalie and her team are the best in the business. She's vastly knowledgable about the market and all the nuances that come with buying and selling homes. Best of all, there is no pressure with Natalie. She's exactly what you need in a real estate agent, someone who wants what you want, and will go to bat on your behalf when she needs to. We've bought and sold homes with them, and highly recommend them t...

— Scott

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

We would recommend Trish Hansen as a full service seller’s broker. The listing looked polished and professional. She was organized, thorough, and motivated. Trish provided excellent service even answering the phone evenings and weekends, and going out of her way to make the transaction go very smoothly. She was in constant communication with the buyer’s broker and mortgage company and kept us informed re...

— Seller

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

I would give Natalie 6 out of 5 stars if I could. She was recommended to us by friends who had recently moved to Bend, and we knew from our first phone meeting with her that she was the agent for us. She and Trish were attentive, engaged, and thorough from the start always there with an answer whenever we had a question and in front of the process from the beginning. Buying a house is a stressful experie...

— Pinaire

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Trish in an amazing realtor! She was very motivated in finding the right options for us in a new home and all while trying to sell our previous home. She is a hard working individual that will not stop working for you until your home is sold and or purchased. She truly was a pleasure to work with and at the end we sold or old home, purchased our dream home and gained an amazing friend. Thank you Trish fo...

— Charles O.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Very helpful and knowledgeable about everything. First-time buyer and she walks me through everything A+ wonderfully. A+ in the future if I have to sell it I will be using her as my agent. Highly recommended.

— Rob M.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

I am not a first time homebuyer, but a fourth time homebuyer. Trish was terrifically helpful with finding me the right properties to look at, and scheduling viewings on weekends when I could make it over the mountains to Bend (I live in Eugene), even during the COVID pandemic. She also took charge to chat up a homeowner long enough for me to actually look at the home without the homeowner following me ar...

— Susan A.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

Natalie was very professional, diligent and amazing resource for us during our home purchase in Sisters. Her team was equally helpful during the process as well. Everyone was very friendly and courteous to work with. Amazing to work with. Highly recommend!

— David B.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

We were recommended to Natalie by a business associate and so glad we did. Over the years we have bought and sold numerous houses and had mixed results with brokers. Not this time! Natalie and her team were a delight to work with and organized, responsive and professional from start to finish. Being concerned while living out of town in Southern California during the entire process, and having a renter l...

— Joe

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

We just wanted to take a moment to express our gratitude and admiration for the outstanding service that Trish Hansen provided us during our recent real estate purchase. In a few words, you have truly gone "Above and Beyond" our expectations. From the very first moment we went up to Bend OR, and met you in person, we felt reassured that we had found not just a real estate agent but a trusted partner. We ...

— Maria B.

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