MovingSD.com

Selling a home in San Diego can seem like a big job, and a great deal to think about! Our job is to work with sellers to make their process as simple as possible, while obtaining the highest price possible in the sale, and reducing their exposure to risk. At the bottom of this page, you will be able to submit some information so that we can provide you with a free, no-obligation market analysis that will help give you an idea of where to set your listing price. But before doing that, we invite you to read the information below, which will give you some tips on how to choose an agent.

All Realtors® have most of the same tools. We all have the MLS and cooperate with other agents. But the difference is this: while some agents sell 20 to 100 homes per year, the average agent sells only three or four. That is one sale every three or four months. And most of those agents represent buyers, not sellers, on the majority of their transactions.

Many real estate agents work part time, and keep another job to pay the bills. Do they have the time and resources to be an effective listing agent? Our first tip on picking an agent is to hire someone who works full time. You wouldn’t hire a part-time attorney, doctor, airline pilot or home builder, would you? Your real estate professional needs to be up to date on the latest technologies, strategies and market conditions to sell your house fast in San Diego.

You need an agent with a proven track record and an aggressive marketing plan. Your agent needs to communicate the benefits of your home to the public, but more importantly to the other agents who are working with the qualified buyers. Look at the agent’s website. Do they have a way for buyers to search for properties? If the agent you are considering does not have listings for potential buyers to view, you may miss out on one of the most powerful marketing secrets that Realtors® have. That is “cross selling.” If a buyer inquires about a home and it doesn’t work out for them, your agent can show them other listings. While any agent can do this, an agent without a showcase of listings will not receive the scores of inquiries that come from advertising, marketing and promotions. If the agent you list with isn’t advertising listings, you won’t see results. A buyer can’t buy a home that they don’t know about.

A good listing agent will follow up on the showings of your home and provide you with tangible feedback. We utilize the Homefeedback.com system, which automatically e-mails the showing agents, requesting their written feedback. The responses will come to you automatically by e-mail. Here is an example:

The above example represents why following up is so important. A buyer might really like your home, but have some reservations or unanswered questions. If those don’t get addressed properly, they may wander off and buy another home. In the above scenario, a member of our team replied to the agent telling him that the large furniture currently in the home was brought in through the hallway in question by the current owners (not movers). Without follow-up and feedback, we would not have even known the buyer had an objection to overcome!

Why should you even contact us? Mr. P, who sold his home located on West Canyon Avenue, had his home listed for over a year with one of the local agents. The home didn’t sell. In frustration, he called us and our team sold it in 81 days. While other agents were sitting around complaining about the market,we got the job done!

Let’s look at a couple technicalities that are rarely considered by the listing agent at the beginning of the pre-marketing process:

The Termite Report

It is customary in our region to have a wood-destroying pest report (commonly referred to as the “termite report”) completed when a home sells. In most offers, the buyer will request that the seller provide this report, and also pay for termite clearance (any remediation necessary to correct active infestation).

A good listing agent will have the termite report completed before the home ever goes on the market. However, most agents do not have it done until the property is in escrow. Because you can expect that termite clearance will be a seller expense, don’t you think it would be a good idea to know what the cost would be before agreeing to that expense in a legally-binding contract?

A few years ago, we represented the buyer in the sale of a home on Mount Soledad in La Jolla. As usual, we asked for the seller to pay for termite clearance when we wrote the offer, and the seller agreed. The listing agent did not have a termite report completed prior to opening escrow, so the seller had agreed to complete corrective work without having any idea of the actual cost. You can imagine how shocked and angry the seller was when the termite bill came out to nearly $25,000.00! This was an old home with many large picture windows whose frames were infested, so it was definitely an extreme case. The lesson, however, is not one that I would wish for any seller to learn firsthand: You don’t want to agree to any repairs before you know how much they will cost!

Pre-Listing Disclosures & Physical Inspection

Most residential real estate transactions in California are intended to be as-is sales. This rarely ends up being the case. Potential buyers will usually come to accept defects that they know about before writing an offer, but nobody likes surprises in a home-buying situation. For this reason, we will have all of your disclosures ready for potential buyers to review before they write an offer.

In Southern California it is customary for the buyer to hire a physical inspector to check out the property during the first few days of the escrow. When further defects come to light as a result of the inspection, buyers will typically want to renegotiate. They may ask the seller to make repairs, provide a credit, or even lower the price.

Depending on the type and age of the property in question, we often recommend that sellers conduct a pre-listing inspection. The idea here is to get a professional report that will anticipate the findings that would show up in the buyer’s inspection. With the pre-listing inspection in hand, many times sellers can make minor repairs before the property goes on the market. And for items they may not wish to repair, the inspection serves as a disclosure document to make potential buyers aware of these conditions before they write an offer. This may dramatically reduce the amount of renegotiation that happens during escrow, and therefore increases the chances of the transaction closing on time with everybody happy!

Why should you even contact us? Mr. G, who lives in Northern California, inherited a small home in University Heights and had it listed for six months with a local agent. The property had some Craftsman charm, but was quite a fixer and did not sell. When the listing expired, Mr. G was referred to us by his attorney, with whom we had worked in the past. After completing some minor cosmetic repairs and clean-up, as well as a termite report and pre-listing inspection, we listed the property at a fair price and had it sold in five days! The buyer did not request any repairs or credits, even after having further inspections completed.

Our Commitment To You:

Our marketing gets you the best buyers by exposing your home to both the agents who are working with the qualified buyers, and to the buyers who do not yet have agents. We will not promise you an unrealistic price just to get the listing, then go out and tell buyers that you’ll accept a lower price. Unbelievably, there are agents who do this. We will do everything in our power to negotiate the highest and best offer possible!

We will tell you what we can do, and also make recommendations as to what you can do to get your home sold. Then our team will go to work. You will be kept in the loop with everything that happens.

Contact us today, and give us an opportunity to tell you how we do business. You will see for yourself that there is a difference.  Our goal is to sell your home for the highest price, with the best communication, and least inconvenience to you!

Kind Regards,
The MovingSD.com Team