Sell your home!

This blog has mainly focused on buying a house - but some of you already own houses and maybe haven't gone through the sale process yet. The next few entries will review the process of selling a home.

Starting out, we need to determine the value of your home. Realtors will provide you with a market analysis (not an appraisal). The market analysis is the realtor’s opinion of what your home should be able to sell for given the market conditions. In order to do a market analysis I will need to set up two meetings.

The first should be fairly short, we'll walk through the house and I'll take notes and measurements. If you have info from when you bought the house, that could be helpful - but not necessary (room dimensions, blue prints, previous marketing pieces). From there I will take the information I've gathered and plug it into the computer to try and find good comparables. Good comparables would be similar sized homes that have recently sold nearby. The last sentence is important so let's break it down: square feet is what it always comes down to - we want homes that have roughly the same amount of finished square feet. We only want to look at sold home prices because a house on the market might not sell at its current price (or ever sell for that matter). A neighbor’s current list price can be a factor, but it is largely irrelevant. Since the market is always changing we want homes that have solid in the last 6 months - a shorter time frame is even better. And obviously we want homes that are near your own. There are other factors specific to each home as well, like condition, number of garage stalls, bedrooms and baths, etc.

Once I've compiled the information we will get together again to review my findings and well go through what I will do to market your home and get it sold. I'll make suggestions about what you should do to get your house ready to go on the market and notify you of things you must do (i.e. truth in housing inspection) . I will also create a net sheet for you that will estimate all your selling expenses and give you a good idea of what you will be walking away with - which will likely be a key factor in determining what you can spend on your next home.

House of the week If you want value in Minneapolis – there is no place better than Camden. Yes, it’s close to North Mpls, but there are incredibly nice area in Camden. This house, on a parkway anywhere else in the Twin Cities would cost A LOT more.