Found 73 blog entries tagged as selling your home.

Everyone knows that first impressions are important. By carefully staging your Santa Cruz home, you can positively influence the feelings your potential buyers have when they are viewing the property.

Staging is the art of decorating and arranging the spaces within your house to make it more appealing to buyers. If you can adapt the rooms to create an attractive and welcoming zone that homebuyers can see themselves in, they will be more likely to buy your property.

One of the most important rooms to stage is the living room, because it is such a central part of the house. This is where a lot of the social activity occurs, so it should appear comfortable and welcoming. Here are some tips to keep in mind when staging your living room before the next…

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When deciding to sell a piece of Santa Cruz real estate, there are certain things you must disclose about the property to the buyer before the sale can go through. Disclosure laws are put in place to protect the buyer from unknowingly purchasing defective property. Not disclosing certain information about the property can jeopardize the sale, or worse, invite a lawsuit.

Some laws are different depending on where you live. The best way to know what you need to disclose in your area is to check with your REALTOR or property attorney and fill out the seller disclosure form.  The main items that need to be disclosed are any defects with the home. This includes, but is not limited to, plumbing problems, water leaks, cracks in the foundation, insect…

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Selling your Santa Cruz home can be an exciting, yet frustrating process. Receiving an offer only to have it be too low or fall through can be disappointing and discouraging. While real estate contracts can vary across the country, be sure to take a hard look at the following sections before accepting an offer.  

1. Purchase Price – This is what the buyer wants to pay. Your real estate agent can help you determine whether it’s a price you can negotiate on or the offer is too low and you should disregard it.

2. Earnest Money – Buyers put a deposit of earnest money into a third-party escrow account in good faith that the transaction will go through. The general rule is, the larger the deposit, the more serious the offer.

3. Financing – Your buyers’…

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It can be very difficult to determine what your property is worth in the current marketplace, because you are biased by what the property is worth to you. These emotions can get in the way of impartially evaluating a property and often cause sellers to overprice their Santa Cruz home.

When pricing your property, you need to be objective and reasonable so you can come up with a selling price that will capture the interest of buyers. Here are a few examples of common mistakes people make when pricing their house for sale.

Reading too much into online comparables
Avoid relying too much on online pricing information of sold houses. They can be a perfect place to start for getting a general idea of how much real estate is worth, but they are not always…

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From new landscaping and a fresh coat of paint, to appliance upgrades and room remodeling, homeowners will go to great lengths to present their Santa Cruz real estate for sale in the best light possible. However, sellers need to be aware that while they’re fixing up current flaws in their home, they shouldn’t cover up past ones.

That’s where the disclosure comes in. All sellers will need to fill out disclosure forms about their properties, and every buyer should triple-check this form before signing on the dotted line of a contract. Below are a few facts about disclosures to help sellers ensure they’re doing the right thing when listing Santa Cruz real estate.

The Purpose of a Disclosure

Disclosures come in a variety of forms, but their primary…

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Selling a house in the current market can be tricky, but there are certain mistakes an owner can make that will cause a Santa Cruz home to sit still without a decent offer and cause the listing to go stale. In order to prevent that from happening, make sure you are not making one of the following mistakes when putting your property on the market.

Overpricing

While your Santa Cruz home may hold sentimental value, that value does not translate into dollars. Be realistic about your asking price and know the market. Look at the list price of similar houses on the market to get a rough idea of what you should ask for your property. Your real estate agent can also give you their expert opinion based on experience and comparables.

Neglecting Repairs

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Without a doubt, spring is the best time of year to get your Santa Cruz home on the market and sold fast. The reason behind this trend is understandable. Most people don’t want to look at new houses, pack everything up and move in the cold of winter. Also, families want to wait until the kids get out of school for the summer, so they’ll start shopping in the spring. Thus, when the warm weather returns, so do the buyers in the real estate market.

Before your real estate agent lists your Santa Cruz home, it’s essential for it to look its best. Examine your living space and see it as a buyer would — then double check this list of staging tips to make sure you haven’t overlooked any important details.

• Clear out the clutter. Tidy up counter tops,…

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Have you ever walked into Santa Cruz homes and looked down to see stained carpet or flooring? It definitely makes you want to keep your shoes on. Imagine if you were a buyer looking at the same floor.

The right type of flooring and whether it is well taken care of can make a big difference to buyers. If your floor is questionably clean, here are a few fixes to help remedy the issue to make sure your home sells.

Does your home have hardwood floors?

You’re in luck. Buyers love hardwood floors and some will actually pay extra to get them. In fact, they could be that final selling point. If your hardwood floors are covered by carpet, painted over or showing anything but the natural wood grain, it’s time for an overhaul. Pull up those carpets and get…

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Anyone preparing their Santa Cruz home for sale can get focused on all the little updates they need to make before it’s ready to be put on the market. However, once the property is listed, they usually just sit back and wait for the offers to roll in — which can be disappointing.

For a fast sale, real estate agents know that the work never stops. Below are insightful tips from property experts to create buzz around your house and get it sold quickly!

Bait buyers with visuals
Most buyers do their preliminary searches online, so this will be their first impression of your place. Hire a Realtor that uses a professional photographer. Or, take it one step further and make sure a virtual tour video is made — the extra effort might clench the deal.

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If you have a Santa Cruz home for sale, it is important to appreciate the significance of first impressions. When potential buyers drive up to your property and take their first look at your front door, they will instantly be drawing conclusions about your house.

When you are trying to entice a buyer to fall in love with your house, you must consider the curb appeal of your Santa Cruz home for sale. This term describes the way your house looks from the outside or while standing on the curb.

What they see inside could either support or alter that original conclusion, but there is no way to erase a first impression. In fact, some surveys show that curb appeal can affect a buyer’s decision even more than price or square footage. Below are seven simple…

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