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 agent  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 realtor once you choose one so he or she 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 real estate agent is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. An agent 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

I 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. My 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 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 agent.

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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. 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. I 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.

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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 realtor 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

See why our clients love working with us.

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Natasha

Working with Jessica and Gena (and the larger team) was the best real estate experience I could have asked for! I met first with Jessica to discuss my real estate goals and we came up with a strategy for where and how I should ...
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Buyer

Loved working with Jess Tyk/Baker! She was very responsive and helpful. She developed a great understanding for what we were looking for and really helped tailor our home search accordingly. Would definitely work with her again...
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Jennifer

Jessica heads an efficient, friendly, and knowledgeable team. We are not first-time buyers and anticipated the amount of legwork and paperwork we would need to complete as we did when we bought our previous home. Jessica and he...
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James

When we realized we needed to sell our house due to a new job, Jessica and her team immediately came to mind. She helped us find a house a few years earlier and in addition to making that a great experience, she stayed in conta...
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Stacey

Never have I seen the level of service, professionalism, and outright integrity Jessica exhibits. I am so impressed with Jessica that any opportunity I have to recommend her services I do so with great enthusiasm. In a competit...
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Michael & Christine

After going through five different selling agents over a span of six years we thought we would go with JKB given their recent success in our neighborhood. Jessica and her team were able to get an offer within 1 month and close ...
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Jena

I can’t speak highly enough of my experiences with Jessica. Her knowledge, integrity, and diligence are just a few qualities that separate her from the rest of the industry. With so many moving parts to the home buying and sell...
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Darlene

I first recommended Jessica to my father who was looking to invest in Real Estate. She did such a phenomenal job for him that when I decided to do some investing, I contacted her myself. Jessica has been a wealth of support thr...
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Gernot & Teri

We were so impressed that Jessica and her team sold our house in 7 days, with 6 offers, and for 103% of the asking price. In fact, they represented us on the purchase of our new home too and perfectly timed both deals to make t...
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Lauren

Jessica is the most amazing Realtor®. I have met her attention to detail, customer service focus, and vision make her a truly a different breed of Realtor®. She excelled in both selling and purchasing for us, two different skil...
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Buyer | Seller

Jessica has received many accolades in her career, and she earned and deserved every one of them. She takes a methodical, yet passionate, interest in her clients providing personal and professional service. I highly recommend J...
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John & Shelley

Thanks for the fantastic support you provided on the sale of our home, and the purchase of our new home. You and your team were very responsive to questions, provided timely updates, and showed much hustle during the process.
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Shan & Bethany

We were so impressed that thanks to Jessica’s skilled negotiations and detailed marketing techniques, Jessica and her team were able to sell our property for $11,500.00 above the list price and in less than 30 days.
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George C.

Jessica’s expert negotiating skills sold my house in less than a week for more than $20,000 over the asking price, and with multiple offers. JKB Realty Group is a fantastic team to work with from start to finish.
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Justin

Thanks for the quick turnaround on the house. It only took your office 6 days to get a contract. Amazing considering I had the home on the market for over a month with my previous Realtor®.
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Mitch & Stacey

I was so amazed that Jessica and her team were able to sell my house in only 3 days and with multiple offers. I really enjoyed working with them and was so impressed by their service.
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Darrin & Kelly

I could not believe that we had our house sold in only 48 hours with multiple offers. Jessica made the selling of my home stress-free.
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Brian & Amy

When selling our house with JKB Realty Group, we received multiple offers and ended up receiving 99% of the asking price.
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Kaitlyn C.

Your team is awesome. Cherie is awesome and Amanda helped me every step of the way. You'll make it a stress-free process.
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Riaan & Jamie

You are "one of a kind". You are fabulous and such a pleasure to work with. Enthusiastic and energetic. Go-getter.
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JKB Realty creates the most comprehensive and strategic marketing for all of our client’s properties. Our approach to marketing goes above and beyond competitors. The dedicated JKB marketing staff will maximize your sales price, and sell your property faster than the average realty company in Austin.