Our Home Selling Process

Here are the general details surrounding the process of selling your home through Boulder County Realty:

  • Initial phone call. Once you express interest in potentially selling your property, we'll ask you some initial questions and take notes. From there, we'll be sure to answer any questions that are top of mind for you and then proceed to schedule a time to visit your property.
  • Home tour. One of our agents will visit with you at your property to walk through and become familiar with the details and layout. You'll also receive a package of paperwork further explaining the details of the home selling process as well as some standard contract paperwork to review.
  • Review the market analysis. This helps you understand the recent sales data in which we’ve studied and utilized to help form a professional opinion of the listing price range of your home.
  • Tour or watch a video tour of your current competition. It’s critical to understand your competition. Homebuyers will likely want to see almost all of the homes that are in their general area of interest and within their price range. It’s not uncommon for homebuyers to see homes that vary in price by $100,000 or more. We’ll create a video tour of each property near yours that is similarly priced or you can join along while visiting the competition. It’s important to know what you’re up against and also see the homes that other buyers will be viewing as they weigh which one they wish to call home.
  • Determine the listing price of your home. One of the greatest mistakes that sellers often make is overpricing their home. Many times, the listing price is determined based on the dollar figure that sellers are looking to walk away with rather than what the current market value actually is.  You’ll want to keep your listing price in line with the recently sold homes that are similar to yours as well as remain competitive with the homes that are nearby and currently for sale but not yet under contract. The current demand for homes in your price range is also important to keep in mind. My role is to assess and share my thoughts on the recent sales, current competition, and general market demand. It’s important for you to also review the data and see the current competition so that you can make a well-informed decision regarding the listing price.
  • Review the Estimated Seller Net Sheet. I’ll prepare and share an Estimated Net Sheet that will tell you the amount of money you’ll walk away with based on the anticipated listing price, the estimated costs associated with selling your property, and the payoff of your existing loan/s (if any). 
  • Decide if you wish to proceed with the sale. After determining a honed-in price range in which to list your home, and reviewing an estimated seller net sheet that estimates what amount of money you’ll walk away with at the closing table- it’s time to decide if you’re ready to proceed with the sale of your home.
  • Pick a listing date. We’ll work together to determine the specific day we’ll place your home on the Multiple Listing Sevice (MLS) and begin our full marketing suite designed to give your home maximum exposure.
  • Review and sign the listing paperwork. As a licensed Realtor, the Colorado Real Estate Commission provides me with much of the contract paperwork required within the transaction. Their forms will always say “The printed portions of this form, except differentiated additions, have been approved by the Colorado Real Estate Commission.” near the top. Any portions of the form that I complete will be in a blue font.
  • Get your home ready for sale. You’ll want to review our general (but detailed) list of tasks to prepare your home for sale. Once we have a listing date, we’ll determine the date that the Professional Photographer and 3D Tour Specialist will be over to your home. This will typically be two to four days before the listing date and it’s the date in which you’ll want to have your home ready to showcase. We recommend taking thirty minutes and work backward from this date to schedule (in your calendar) when you’ll have the specific pre-listing tasks completed by. This will significantly reduce the level of stress as you prepare for sale because all you’ll have to do is focus on one day at a time.
  • Discuss the benefits of Open Houses. There are many benefits and a few cons to open houses. We’ll discuss in more detail and you’ll decide if you’d like to have us hold open houses for you.
  • Discuss home showings (buyers touring your home). We’ll discuss the details surrounding when showings will begin, the showing hours each day, how you’d like to be notified of showings and how much advance notice you’d like before a showing can occur.
  • Become familiar with the Pre-Showings Task List. As we get ready to place your home on the market, I’ll send you a simple task list of things to do in advance of scheduled showings so that your home looks its best for the prospective buyers.
  • Complete the standard disclosures to share with prospective buyers. I’ll be sending you standard disclosure forms to complete before listing your home for sale. They’re pretty straight forward, however, I’m always happy to review them with you before signing.
  • Complete our online Property Info Questionnaire. We’ll provide you with a link to access a questionnaire about your property. The questions are designed to provide us with the vital details about your property that we’ll want to be aware of and utilize within our marketing of your property.
  • Professional Photos and 3D Tour. It’s recommended that you not be home for the Photographer and 3D Tour specialist. This is because they’ll be going throughout the house taking pictures and scans of the rooms and you won’t want to be ducking and hiding as they do so. I’ll be happy to set up a lockbox for them to gain access. Depending on the size of your home, the process can take anywhere from one hour to three hours to complete. You’ll want to utilize the Pre-Showings Task List to prepare for this appointment.
  • Market your home. We’ll begin checking off the various marketing tasks that we complete to give your home the maximum amount of marketing exposure. Details of these tasks are defined within the listing agreement.
  • Receive buyer feedback about your home. Each agent that tours your home will receive an email from me requesting their buyer's feedback on the property. I’ll send the feedback request each day and if I haven’t heard back, I’ll give the agent a call to attempt to get it. Once I receive feedback, I’ll share it with you.
  • Become familiar with the purchase contract. The purchase contract (formally called the ‘Contract to Buy and Sell Real Estate’) is approximately 18 pages long. I’ll provide you with a general overview of it so that you’ll be familiar with what you’re looking at when we receive an offer. I’ll also assist you with negotiations when the time comes.
  • Receive one or more offers. Once an offer is received, I’ll send it over to you right away. I’ll then review it in detail and reach out with suggestions on how to respond. Negotiations will commence. The final decision, of what you’d like to do, will remain yours to make.
  • Go ‘Under Contract’. Once we have a fully executed contract (signed by both parties), you’ll officially be ‘under contract’ and we’ll all move forward abiding by the agreed-upon terms within the purchase contract.
  • Title Company request for info.  After you’re under contract, a representative of the title company will reach out to you requesting your lender name/s (if applicable), your loan number/s, your social security number (do not send it via email) and for you to sign a payoff authorization form. The title company will reach out to your lender/s on your behalf and for the lender to release details of your loan, you’ll need to sign the authorization form.
    The title representative will also ask if you’ll be in town to attend the closing and if you’d like your proceeds in the form of a cashier's check or wire transfer.
  • The Home Inspection. Once under contract, the buyer/s will immediately be within the inspection period. This means that as long as they provide reasonable notice, they should be granted to access your home to inspect as they see fit. Most of the time, buyers will only visit the home at the time of the home inspection, which typically occurs a few days to a week after going under contract. It is requested that you not be home for the inspection, which will typically be a four-hour window either in the morning or an afternoon during the workweek. The buyer/s may then want to visit the property a few times after the home inspection has occurred, typically to get some repair estimates, if applicable.
  • Inspection Objection negotiations. The buyer/s will inevitably submit an “Inspection Objection Notice” and it will specify the things that they’d like you to correct or resolve. Regardless of what they object to, the only requirement by the state is that you have a carbon monoxide detector within fifteen feet of all bedrooms. So, making it through the buyer/s objections really comes down to negotiations. Are they bringing up cosmetic things, structural issues, HVAC system issues, roofing, plumbing, electrical or all of the above? Each case is different and I will be there to assess and share my thoughts and recommendations on how to have a successful outcome without giving up more than you need to while also helping prevent losing the buyer/s altogether.
  • Schedule your moving day. Once we’ve made it through the inspection period, the odds are far greater that the buyer/s will make it all the way to the closing table and will soon be the next owner/s. Therefore, it’s best to figure out your moving schedule and line up any movers, as necessary.
  • The appraisal. I’ll receive a call from an appraiser within one to two weeks after going under contract. I’ll assist with coordinating a time that works for the appraiser to visit your home. The appraiser will typically be at a property for about thirty minutes or less. The appraiser will snap photos and take exterior measurements. Again, there is no need for you to be home at the time of the appraisal, however, it is important for you to again follow the pre-showings task list so that your home once again presents itself in the best light possible.
  • The Loan Objection Deadline. Since most homebuyers obtain financing, the last contingency that they’ll likely have in place within the purchase contract (and that you’ll be eager to make it past) is the Loan Objection Deadline. Once this date passes, the buyer's earnest money will either go towards the downpayment and closing costs on the day of closing or they would forfeit it to you should they not be able to close and buy your home for some reason. Typically, if you’re planning to schedule movers to assist with moving, you’ll want to have the moving day occur after the Loan Objection date passes. The Loan Objection deadline will typically be 3 - 7 days prior to the closing date.
  • The Closing date. This is the day you’ve been looking forward to! You’ll be signing far less paperwork than the buyers and upon completion, the title company will provide you with your proceeds. A celebration is in order!