Prepare Your Home for the Market by Completing These 5 Actions

What should you do to prepare your home, and yourself, when selling? Today I have five must-do actions to successfully sell your home.


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What do you have to do to prepare your home to sell? Today I have a list of the five must-do actions.

1. Recognize that all real estate markets are local. While paying attention to national trends is helpful, it is even more important to understand your local market. Area conditions will have the greatest influence on your sale.

2. Declutter. Clean up the house to make it feel open and as spacious as possible.  We have a courtesy cargo trailer you are more than welcome to use free of charge. You can also get rid of belongings you no longer need by donating it or giving it away.

3. Stage your home. As statistics show, staging your home adds value to your listing. Doing so will make your property feel more organized, and will help buyers feel at home when they tour your listing. Staging is not only about design, but also about making the space feel open and comfortable. Our team works with a staging service, and we would be happy to connect you with them so that you can schedule a consultation. 

Staging is not only about design, but also about making the space feel open and comfortable.

4. Interview agents to sell your home. All agents are not created equal. At the Hauer Home Team, we represent the top 1% of agents in the entire country. We highly recommend you interview as many agents as you need to make sure you hire the professional who best fits your needs.

5. Pick the best price for your home. You have to sell your home twice: Once to the buyer and then to the appraiser. At the end of the day, though, you are not the one who picks the price, and neither is the agent. The marketplace determines what your home is worth. Picking a strategic price will allow you to net the most money from the sale of your property.

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sellers: Don't List Before Doing These 3 Things

When selling your home, there are a few key things to do before starting the listing process.


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There are a few important things all sellers should do before listing their home. Today we’d like to list these steps so that you can be better prepared for your transaction.

1. Have a preliminary title search. It is always good to make sure there aren’t any liens or judgments against the property. The last thing you want when selling your home is to encounter an unpleasant surprise at or near closing.


2. Add earthquake straps on your hot water tank and install a carbon monoxide detector. Both of these are critical to ensuring your property is safe and meets legal requirements. In fact, Washington state law requires that each level of a home have at least one carbon monoxide detector. A detector is about $25 and can generally be plugged into any wall outlet.

It’s critical to ensure your property is safe and meets legal requirements before you list.

3. Take care of legal issues like distribution of sale proceeds. This can be a difficult aspect of the transaction to navigate, but my team and I would be happy to help guide you on this subject.

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Buying and Selling at the Same Time Doesn’t Have to Be Scary

If you’ve been thinking of buying and selling simultaneously, I have a couple options for you to make it an easy transition.


Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report. 

Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.

People often ask, “How do I buy and sell at the same time?” The biggest concern a lot of us have is how exactly to make the move from an old house to a new one. Well, there are a couple of different options which may work for you.

You can buy a new house first before you sell. If you are comfortable doing this and have the financial ability to do so, this could be an option for you. Of course, be aware that there’s a risk you’ll end up with two mortgage payments for longer than you want.

You can also sell your current home first before finding a new house to move into. If you sell your house first you will know exactly how much money you have to buy your new home.

Sellers can live for free in their old home because of the market creating demand for their home.

There have been a number of occasions where we were able to negotiate what is called a ‘rent-back’ for our sellers. A rent-back is where the current homeowners get paid for their home, get cashed out on their equity, and then are able to continue living in the property for an additional 30 days or so past closing. Doing this buys them time to find a replacement property. Essentially, sellers can live for free in their old home because of market demand.

When it comes to making a home purchase, we’re often able to help clients find properties by knocking on doors in the neighborhood they’d like to move to. We can get really targeted and specific about the area in which you’d like to search. By sending out letters and door-knocking in that area we are able to procure options for you.

All of this being said, we would be happy to help you manage your transactions. When it comes to pricing your home effectively to get it sold, we're experts and can help give you some guidance in that to make sure that you're not carrying two mortgages longer than need be.

If you have any additional questions on this topic, please don’t hesitate to call or email. I look forward to speaking with you.

Are Pre-Inspections Worth It for Home Sellers?

As a home seller, should you order a pre-inspection before putting your home on the market?


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If you are planning on selling your home, should you get a pre-inspection before you put your home on the market? 

There are two different schools of thought on pre-inspections. 

The first is that yes, getting a pre-inspection is a good idea. It will cost $400 to $500, and the home inspector will come up with a list of deficiencies. You can make those repairs or disclose those deficiencies to potential buyers. You have to disclose any deficiencies that you are aware of in your home. 

The other school of thought that I lean toward is that you shouldn’t waste your money doing a pre-inspection. Chances are that you’ll spend that $400 or $500 and when the buyer comes along, they will pay their own inspector to examine the property. They want to make sure that the inspector looks out for their best interest, not your best interest as the seller.

You shouldn’t waste your money on a pre-inspection.

The inspector the buyers hire will look at the inspection that’s already been done and find more repairs. After all, the buyer’s inspector wants to earn their keep, right? Then, you have even more things that you may need to spend money on or repair that might not have been an issue in the first place. 

If you want to net the most money possible on your home sale, I recommend not going the pre-inspection route. 

If you have any other questions about selling your home, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

You Can Always Expect These 4 Things From the Right Agent

As a buyer, there are four things you should demand of your agent during any transaction.


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Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.

Whenever you begin working with an agent on the purchase of your next home, there are four demands you should be making. 

1. To tell you the truth about price. It’s so important that you have an agent who cares enough about you to be honest. The right Realtor will be candid with you and properly guide you on the issue of pricing. Someone with a lot of experience will be ideal for this job.

2. To be understanding of your timetable. Your agent needs to understand and respect your time frame. This way, they can get you into the right home when it works best for you. An agent should always be proactive in meeting your needs and your schedule.

It’s important that your agent cares enough to be honest.

3. To remove as many challenges as possible. Something I’ve been humbled by in my career is that every transaction presents a learning opportunity. I have hundreds of home sales under my belt, but there is still always something new for me to learn. An agent with a lot of experience will be able to use everything they’ve learned in their career so far to remove as many challenges from the transaction as possible.

4. To find you the right house. As a buyer, it’s your right to demand that any professional you work with finds you the best fit for your needs. Still, you need to be realistic. A good agent knows how to deliver good news, while a great agent knows how to deliver tough news. 

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.