Sell your Home in Texas | Debbie French Real Estate Group

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.

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.

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 agents is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. A team of real estate agents with experience can determine what other comparable homes are selling for, evaluate the current market, and may even suggest a home appraisal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Robert & Connie H.

Debbie was so professional, and knowledgeable helping us with the sale of our home. There was never a time if I had a question she was not available to answer it. We would definitely let her help us purchase or sell a home agai...

Mike C.

John Hassell and the Debbie French Group did a fantastic job. The analyst was spot on and the knowledge of the area was very helpful in pricing.

Tammy & Greg W.

Debbie helped us buying and selling, and was fantastic at both! Highly recommend.

Faith S.

My journey with Debbie French has been delightful; she was always available to answer my questions and took time to walk me through uncharted circumstances. Her staff are well trained, very knowledgeable, always communicated we...

Margaret G.

We had a very positive experience selling our home with John and Ashley. John was able to provide us with a great amount of information on the market and how to best price our home to make it appeal to the buyers in the area. H...

Shelly C.

I cannot recommend Debbie French highly enough! From start to finish, she exceeded every expectation. Her knowledge of the market, attention to detail, and commitment to finding the perfect home for me was truly impressive. Deb...

John & Amy M.

Debbie and Ashley were so wonderful to work with! They catered to our every need and made the buying process so easy. We have already given their names out to our friends who are in the market. Thank you ladies!

Lane & Amanda M.

Great realtor team and very hard working. Ashley Trejo, who is a part of Debbie’s team, is fantastic! Easily one of the easiest and best realtors I have ever worked with!

David & Debbie S.

Debbie French did an excellent job with the sale of our lake house. From our initial meeting with her to discuss the process and the pricing through the challenges of getting the house to a price that seemed to line up with the...

Wade & Andrea A.

Great prep, representation, communication and completion of transaction. Friendly but very professional. Strongly recommend Debbie French Real Estate Group.

Kent G.

Debbie and team are a class act. They know the lake. Took time to speak to us about our goals for a lake home and then got to work. No waisted time, showed us the properties that fit, advised and supported, and found us exactly...

Peggy B.

Debbie French and her team are very professional, knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with! They are very accommodating and available! I highly recommend the Debbie French team if you are looking for lake property at Cedar Cre...

Julie E.

Debbie helped us through every step of the process. She gave great advice to position or house for a quick sale at a great price. The transaction could not have been smoother.

Robert B.

Debbie French was able to sell our lake lot when other realtors couldn't. She was persistent, smart, and calculated to get us the right exposure and our waterfront property was sold for a good price in no time. She is really pl...

Gloria R.

Working with this amazing lady has been one of the best experiences you can have when you are asking or buying a property, She is so knowledgeable, professional, kind, and more importantly, she got the job done. Thank you, Debbie.

Lindsay C.

We worked with Debbie for the span of almost three years, trying to find our perfect lake house, and she was wonderful. She advised us on elements of a home with which we were unfamiliar and always looked out for our best inter...

Linda S.

Debbie French is absolutely the best realtor at Cedar Creek Lake. She is excellent in getting a house staged. She has wonderful ideas. But most important she is outstanding at getting a house sold quickly. She brings in clients...

Daniel G.

Debbie French is so incredibly professional! We highly recommend her to sell your Home in East Texas!

Dave V.

We are greatly appreciative for the diligent work and direction Debbie and her team provided us on our recent lake house purchase. Though I'm a broker myself, the knowledge, direction, and insight Debbie and her team provided f...

Polly U.

What a great experience. Debbie herself is wonderful and she has a cracker Jack team! We were kept abreast of every detail long the way. We feel like we got really good alive and counsel from her.

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Working with the Debbie French Real Estate Group means you are in the hands of agents whose area of expertise is the Cedar Creek Lake area. We know this market. We know the lake. We would love to get to know you and share that knowledge whether you are thinking about selling or wanting to find the perfect property.

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Seller's Guide