The home selling process is a bit complex, but I’ve created a seller timeline that shows the entire process from beginning to end. Each step has its own sub-timelines, and depending on your transaction, you can get some bunny trails or end up taking a major off-ramp on your way to closing. I have written articles on every issue on this graphic and on the timelines involved for every step, and all of these articles can be found on this real estate blog with a simple search for that phrase or by searching under the categories shown at the menus near the top of the blog. I’ve also written a book that I strongly recommend if you are planning to enter the home selling process, and that book is entitled The Seven Myths of Selling Your Home. You’ll find it on Amazon, but if you have a home in Sequim, you can get a free copy from me. If you are selling your home in another state so you can buy a home in the Sequim area, I strongly urge you to read the Seven Myths as it will be helpful no matter where you live. It’s a lifetime of experience packed into one book by an attorney and Realtor, so you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.
Use the link on this image below rather than the image above to go to the Timeline.
The process of listing, preparing your home for showings, negotiating the price and terms, and handling the increasingly lengthy contracts and addendums, as well as handling the buyer due diligence, all of this has been slowly getting more complicated over the years. Now the average purchase contract is at least 14 pages of single spaced legalese and some contracts end up at closer to 20 pages. There’s a lot to know, but the bigger challenge in the home selling process is what you don’t know.
The traps for the unwary are not the things you know but the things you don’t know. Most home sellers don’t realize how many snares and traps are out there. We all tend to think we won’t have a car accident. Someone else will have a car accident, but not me. My neighbor had to hire an attorney and was involved in litigation that lasted two years, but that won’t happen to me. I get that. This is human nature to think that bad things happen to other people but not so much to us. But life happens, and I can tell you many attorneys make good livings because of real estate nightmares that clients never thought they would experience.
Here’s the Home Selling Process
When you are getting ready to list your home, do your homework. Research agents. Learn in advance about what kind of marketing is effective today on the Internet and why the traditional bricks and mortar brokerage is no longer a viable approach in the home selling process. Read and study, and then hire the best listing agent you can find. But don’t get it backwards. Most home sellers just hire the first agent they talk to, and later do their research on the agent they already hired and on what it takes to market to qualified buyers today.
I can promise you this, the home selling process is a whole lot more complicated than it used to be, so be sure you are prepared in every way.
Last Updated on April 19, 2019 by Chuck Marunde
