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 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 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.

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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 you receive an offer, 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, repair allowances, contingencies, and a settlement date. When both parties have agreed to the terms, 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.  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.  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 selling 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 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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Tony F.

Tony F.

It was great working with Kaya! She kept me updated through the whole process! Would highly recommend her!
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Steve G.

Steve G.

Just closed on my dad’s home sale and Kaya has been terrific during the entire process. She gave great advice on tips to sell the house determining the sale price determining broker commissions, etc. The entire process went ver...
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Karen C.

Karen C.

Selling my house with Kaya Kennedy was great. She is very responsive to all my questions throughout the process. She showed me a printout with all the numbers of where the money would go and what my net would be with what we we...
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Willesee

Willesee

Kaya did a great job helping us sell our house. A Print-out was given to me that listed out all costs with what the net total would be once the house sold for what we were asking. That was very straightforward and helpful to me...
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Kelly M.

Kelly M.

I'm so thankful I found Kaya Kennedy. She worked with us in selling our house and made the process so easy for us. She took care of absolutely everything and was always available for questions. Her recommendations turned out to...
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James M.

James M.

Kaya Kennedy was the best realtor I could have asked for. She made my experience easy and stress-free. I was impressed by how efficient, knowledgeable, and professional she is with all aspects of listing a house. She took care ...
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Shannah B.

Shannah B.

We couldn't have asked for a better job! Kaya was responsive, very informative, and an amazing negotiator. Our home sold in a very short amount of time and sold for the price we were asking for. She made us feel at ease which w...
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Shawn H.

Shawn H.

We worked with Kaya, remotely, to sell our home in Spokane. She had a lot working against her with stuff happening around the neighborhood and still made it happen. She was respectful, responsible, and very helpful throughout t...
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Doug & Misty H.

Doug & Misty H.

We highly recommend Kaya Kennedy; she is exactly what you want in a Realtor. Kaya helped us buy a beautiful home in Spokane, while we were still living in Kansas City! In our position, we needed to depend on a responsible, reli...
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Rick A.

Rick A.

Kaya recently helped me sell my house. I could not have asked for a better job. She was always there whenever I had a question or concern. She responded very promptly when I had a question. She had great photos, had open houses...
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Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith

Kaya helped us sell our house, getting it under contract in about 4 weeks, and closed a month later. She gave us good pricing advice, and took great photos. Kaya went above and beyond a few times, including rushing over to deal...
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Sabrina Keckalo

Sabrina Keckalo

Kaya responded quickly to any questions. She was knowledgeable with paperwork and negotiations with the buyers.
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Joe Irwin

I was very pleased with Kaya as my Realtor. She worked hard at getting us past a poorly run mortgage company and closing company. I would recommend Kaya Kennedy if you are in need of a Realtor; either buying or selling. Thanks,...
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Jerin May

Jerin May

Kaya helped sell our land near Spokane. She was knowledgeable, reliable, and friendly. We appreciated her expertise.
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