Top 7 Things to Know Before Selling Your Walnut Creek Home

Selling your home is a profoundly personal decision weighed by a variety of factors. When considering putting your home on the market, making the right choice for you and your family is critical.

As a critical financial planning decision, the sale of your home will impact your future financial wellness journey. Having a solid plan in place, including sound guidance from a trusted team of advisors and experts, is the best way to ensure that selling your home is as seamless and efficient as possible. 

Living in your Walnut Creek neighborhood for several years affords you many advantages. Among these is the ability to have a general understanding of the housing prices within your neighborhood, as well as local market conditions.

Conducting more in-depth research and gaining a deeper understanding of housing activity in Walnut Creek is an important first step when you’re planning on listing your home for sale. Knowing the resources and tools available is just as significant. Resources such as the National Association of Realtors and the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) can offer a wealth of information when examining considerations, including local and regional housing statistics, and when reviewing comparables in the Walnut Creek area.

Your experienced and trusted real estate professional will also offer insight into the current market and can help you become knowledgeable about the most valuable resources to use to best understand trends and forecasts. Taking a proactive strategy will help you secure the best return when the time arrives to sell your home.

Pricing your Walnut Creek home correctly from the outset is likely the most important step as you prepare for the sale of your home. It’s important to detach emotionally when determining the price and avoid basing the current pricing on your home’s previous value.

The home’s asking price will largely be influenced by whether you live in a hot market, or by timing: when there are more buyers than sellers and prices are driven up as a result. Often in a hot market, a seller can price a home more aggressively within reasonable price limits. When a market is cold, buyers will be more selective, and pricing will usually be at or below market value to attract the right buyer and best offer.

Using the right real estate agent with experience and knowledge about Walnut Creek ensures you’re working with the best professional to help you meet your goals. An experienced and respected agent will have worked extensively within your community and understands the homes in the area, local amenities, local market trends, and other criteria to help illustrate your home’s value and uniqueness.

Your real estate professional may also advise you to seek out other experienced members on your team, including a closing attorney, home inspector, photographer, landscaping expert, handyman, painter, and home stager. A solid team will help make the process of selling your Walnut Creek home as seamless as possible.

Now that you’ve outlined a plan, it’s time to start paying closer attention to the impression your home will make once listed. Never underestimate the power of strong curb appeal. While many people focus their efforts on a home’s interior for the sake of photography and in-person viewing, sprucing up your home’s curb appeal is equally important.

First impressions significantly impact prospective buyers and sometimes serve as a deciding factor when considering multiple homes. Consider enlisting the help of a skilled and experienced landscaper or house painter to help mitigate any issues that stand in the way of that positive first impression.

As your Walnut Creek home prepares to go on the market, homeowners should begin de-personalizing it ahead of professional photography, video walkthroughs, and showings. Remove personalized photos, memorabilia, and other mementos.

Homeowners will typically seek the assistance of a home stager to get the home market ready. Most homeowners won’t have to undertake major renovations, but simple solutions like fresh paint and minor repairs can signal the difference between a favorable first impression and concerns from prospective buyers.

Using different pictures that include a variety of furniture layouts is helpful to have at the ready to offer buyers an idea about a home’s space and the ways each room can be configured. These options help inform a prospective buyer’s decision when considering their lifestyle needs. 

By this point, you’ve likely invested some time assessing and evaluating all that the home selling process entails. But before you’re at the point of considering a purchase offer, you and your real estate agent should have evaluated potential gains or losses within your targeted price range.

Your home’s selling price will be reduced when you factor in real estate sales commissions; closing fees; title charges; government recording and transfer charges; any additional settlement charges; debt obligations for existing mortgages; home repairs included in the sales contract, or repair work completed ahead of listing; and any preparation work to make the home market ready.

Marketing your home is a process requiring careful planning and skilled execution. Your Walnut Creek real estate agent will create a robust marketing plan tailored to your home to reach the right pool of prospective buyers.

A multifaceted approach to marketing your home will include not only yard signs and MLS listings, but will also include your home’s pricing, home preparation, presentation, negotiation, and the strategic advertising and networking involved. These are strategies taken with the intended purpose of maximizing your home’s market exposure and producing the showings leading to offers and ultimately resulting in your property’s sale.

Are you interested in exploring Walnut Creek homes for sale? If so, contact Michael W. Robertson, who has extensive knowledge in the Bay Area real estate market and uses his negotiating skills for his clients.