Seller's Guide

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 team of real estate agents 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 team of real estate agents once you choose one so they 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 team of real estate agents is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. A team of real estate agents 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

We 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. Our 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 team of real estate agents.

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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. We 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 team of real estate agents 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

John T.

John T.

We have been planning to move to an urban area for two years. After 20 years of country living, we sold our home and decided that the Boston area would be our goal. For the past 9 months, we have been living in our vacation hom...
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Buyer | Seller

Buyer | Seller

Federico is the best Boston-area real estate agent with whom we have worked. Our search for an apartment was a tricky one: we had to find a home from a distance (we are moving to Boston from out of state), we have two dogs, and...
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Alicia E.

Alicia E.

As a landlord in and around the Boston Metro area, I've worked with many realtors over the past few years. After more than a few bad experiences, I began to wonder if they were even worth the hassle. That is until I met Federic...
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Buyer | Seller

Buyer | Seller

Recently I had the pleasure of collaborating with Federico, a highly professional Realtor. His expertise, dedication, and proactive approach made the transaction seamless. Excellent communication and a commitment to client sati...
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Grace O.

Grace O.

Federico was super knowledgeable about the Greater Boston area and helped us figure out the best time and pricing to sell our house very quickly. He maintained great communication throughout the process and was willing to answe...
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Jon L.

Jon L.

In short, he was always on our side working to make our house purchase as simple and successful as possible. The best part about working with Fede was that he was always more focused on answering our questions, giving us good a...
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Jenn S.

Jenn S.

Thank you for the referrals! Always amazing to work with you! Federico is a local expert with a lot of in-depth knowledge of the market and plenty of resources that have helped me in my career! He has a large network and has of...
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Ben L.

Ben L.

Very nice and dynamic person. Help me to find out a nice unit on Beacon Hill. His local knowledge is great, he gave me interesting details of my new neighborhood before choosing it to live in. The rent process was fast and I wa...
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Lisa W.

Lisa W.

The Vanguard Team blew me away with their execution. I have never seen a group of agents work so hard in my life. I would recommend them to anyone looking to take the stress out of selling a home.
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Andrew S.

Andrew S.

Federico was great to work with. He knew exactly what we needed to do to get the place we wanted and we got it. I highly recommend him to anyone in the Boston area.
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We're here to help you find your dream home. With a team of experts guiding you every step of the way, our knowledge and experience will ensure you have the best home-buying experience possible.

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