A realtor brings a whole career’s worth of expertise to the home-selling process — reaching a wide audience, ensuring paperwork is properly filled out, coordinating with the lender and title company, and timing deadlines to accommodate all parties involved, with your interests taking priority. In other words: it is certainly easier to rely on a realtor in this process.

As for the cost, there is no guarantee that selling on your own will save you any money. While you may save on agent fees, your smaller marketing reach could result in a below-average transaction and a lack of knowledge about the process can result in unforeseen fees. The way to get the most for your home is to market it to the widest possible audience, and if you are only utilizing Zillow or another DIY marketing platform, you are not getting your message to the majority of buyers. This means you may get less for your home when — or if — a buyer does come along. In fact, most sellers who attempt to sell their own home eventually either hire an agent or wind up working with an agent representing the buyer.

Not at all! You will need enough equity to pay for miscellaneous repairs, the closing costs and the realtor, but the rest of it is yours to pay off your existing mortgage loan and do with as you wish.

Your housing objective should determine the sale; the sale should not determine the housing objective. In other words: if you want to sell your current home and buy a new one that costs 150 percent of your present home’s value (the most common objective), and you will need $30,000 out of the sale, then ask a real estate agent if this is realistic. Just make sure you listen to the response, because no buyer will care how much money you need so much as what your home is worth.

The best way is to look at recent sales of homes like yours, known as “comps”. Look at the final sales price and add value where your home has better attributes, updates and features, while subtracting for features the comparable home has that yours doesn’t. You also need to account for market timing and décor, as well.

A “Zestimate” on a site like Zillow or Realtors Property Resource is a good starting point, but pricing a home correctly is not as straightforward as an algorithm makes it seem. It is a difficult skill, which is why an experienced realtor is so valuable in helping you sell a home in Saint Charles.

You should plan to do most cleaning, painting, repairs and some updating before listing your home. During the sales process, we generally recommend our clients budget around 2% of the sales price (on average) for repairs, but if you have been in your home more than 25 years, that will likely go up. (Likewise, if you have only been in your home a few years, you may not need as much.)

Other expenses to keep in mind include photography, staging, present loan balances, subdivision fees, real estate commission and title expenses, which are about $500 for a seller. Real estate taxes also come from closing, but you should get reimbursed from your bank’s escrows after closing.

Yes! Any major repairs or problems need to be reported and disclosed in full — or fixed, if possible. The days of caveat emptor (buyer beware) are over, which means you are legally liable for failing to disclose any information you clearly should have known about. This can certainly make the home less appealing to buyers, but it is much better to disclose those issues and loose a little money in home value than risk being taken to court.

If you wish to sell a home in Saint Charles that needs repairs or updates, Meyer Real Estate can provide a home equity loan to have the work completed and help your home sell quicker. Contact us here and ask about our unique Repair to Sell Program.

In a word: equity. If you need money now, you should sell your home. You can use that money to buy another home or do as you wish with it. If you already have equity and no immediate need for funds, then you may consider holding the home as an investment and using it as a rental property to generate extra income. Meyer Real Estate employs a team of experienced rental management professionals who handle properties across the St. Charles area. Contact us today to see how we can help you manage your investment properties.

Once you choose a real estate company to help you sell a home in Saint Charles, and an agent to work with, they will guide you through the process. But, it generally looks a lot like this:

1. Set a price. Everything begins with determining a price for your home and starting to gather marketing data. A skilled realtor will be an invaluable help with this.
2. Clean and update. Getting your home into showing shape is extremely important. This will likely involve cleaning, updating features as needed and removing clutter.
3. List the house. Your realtor will put the house on the market once everything is in place, including: disclosures, professional photos, high-converting descriptions and other information likely to be of interest to potential buyers. As soon as you make the listing active, allow people to schedule showings!
4. Ask for feedback and react accordingly. The largest mistake that takes place in this phase of the process is when the seller does not respond to market feedback. How is the home being perceived? How are you showing it? A good realtor will be able to react to feedback and tweak the strategy.
5. Accept an offer. The home will then receive offers, and it is up to you when to accept one. After that, work on the contract starts.
6. Wait for inspections and make repairs. Next is the building inspection phase, during which your agent should help you with bids to make repairs. Then you wait for the appraisal and the buyer’s loan commitment.
7. Get out of there! Finally, you prep, move out of the home if you haven’t already and go to closing.

Of course, this is a vastly oversimplified look at the process. The fun part of being a realtor is how different every transaction is. As realtors, we become talented problem solvers who strive to overcome every issue brought up in the transactions by both sides of the contract. This may include a host of varied problems, like septic and well issues, municipal inspections, flood plain determinations, proper zoning issues, consideration of special tax and historic districts, cleaning or recognizing past liens, and title determination.

Sales occur all year long, but things are slowest around Christmas and New Year’s Eve. But, that shouldn’t discourage you from selling your home in the winter! Inventory is at its lowest in winter, so you have a lot less competition in looking for buyers. The absolute best time to sell, however, is in the late spring, when everyone gets the buying “itch.” After that, it slowly quiets back down again.

It is definitely easier to show potential buyers a home without occupants, but most sellers do not have the ability to buy a new home and move before selling their current home. The solution is keeping the home clean and ready to show at a moment’s notice. That means keeping the home in tip-top shape and ensuring family members — especially kids — put their belongings away regularly.

A foreclosure is when a bank takes possession of a mortgaged property that is not being paid off and sells it to recover loan equity and charges associated with the loan. In Missouri, the bank has the option to pursue legal action against the homeowner for the balance, but it rarely occurs.

A short sale is when the homeowner attempts to sell a mortgaged property for less than what is owed on the home — with the bank’s permission. In this case, the homeowner sells the home contingent upon the bank’s permission to take less, and then the seller and agent petition the bank to accept the offer. If the bank agrees, the deal can close cleanly. Sometimes the seller is asked to accept an unsecured loan for the balance, and other times they are relieved of the excess debt — though they will still face income tax issues, as forgiven debt is treated by the government as income. In some cases, the short sale process can go relatively quickly, but most of the time the process takes months or even years to be resolved and requires a massive amount of paperwork to be completed.