Sell Your Home in Colorado | First Colorado Land Office

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Finished

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.

success stories

We recently bought a home in Mesa Antero and used Jeanine Zeman as our realtor. A friend referred us. I can’t say enough about Jeanine. She immediately made us feel comfortable and she was so patient. We live in Iowa but have been visiting the Salida area regularly for almost 15 years. Our initial plan last November was to simply purchase a small tract of land and eventually build on it. On our first tour of the county with Jeanine she listened carefully to our tastes and dislikes. We were pretty close to a house she had listed in Mesa Antero and asked if we wanted to swing by for a look. That was all it took for us to fall in love with the home. Sh...

— Todd S. & Christopher S.

Martin represented us as a buyer on the purchase of a property in Salida, CO. We live in Texas and buying the property remotely we were extremely fortunate to have such a great agent like Martin guiding us through the process. Martin is not only an expert on everything about Chaffee County but we were overly impressed with his diligence throughout then entire process. Every step of the way we knew Martin had our best interest as his primary focus. He stayed on top of us, the sellers agent, the bank, the HOA and all of the key dates throughout the buying process ensuring every went smoothly. He even went out of his way to inspect the property before ...

— Buyer

Jeff Post is an exceptional realtor. I liked him from the minute he visited my "beloved" mountain home I'd decided to sell. The brochure work was completely professional as was Jeff in handling all the details for my sale, which occurred very soon after the listing. Purchase of the townhouse as far as Jeff was concerned went beyond the call because of some problems with the property. Jeff listened to my concerns and handled a number of the solutions. He is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to good people sent my way. I must add that I needed my hand held in selling my lovely mountain home. Jeff and his staff were with me all the way. I will foreve...

— Carolyn A.

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Seller's Guide

First Time Seller's Guide

Understand Why You're Selling

Determine Selling Price

Start Preparations

Develop a Marketing Strategy

Evaluate Offers

Accept an Offer

Get Ready to Close

Close

Congratulations!

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Seller's Guide

First Time Seller's Guide

Understand Why You're Selling

Determine Selling Price

Start Preparations

Develop a Marketing Strategy

Evaluate Offers

Accept an Offer

Get Ready to Close

Close

Congratulations!

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