Step One: Choosing An Experienced Real Estate Agent Who Specializes in Your Area 
To help a home owner sell their home, their real estate agent needs to do more than just add the listing to the Multiple Listing Service and hope the home sells. Assertive marketing is needed. In this age of technology, marketing on the Internet is very important. It is said that more than 90%+ of home buyers look for homes on-line before they ever physically go out to look at homes in person. Having an agent who puts your home on the Internet in a variety of places is critical. Choosing the right real estate professional to list and market your home may be the most important decision you make during the selling process.
Full service agents can assist you with every step of the selling process from suggesting de-cluttering, to staging referrals that will help your home be more attractive for Buyers, to negotiating offers, to providing referrals to reliable service providers such as landscapers and painters. And if your home has some added complications such as going to have to be attempted to be sold as a short-sale, then it is critical you have a real estate agent who is experienced.
The Phoenix metropolitan area is made up of many diverse communities. It helps to choose a real estate professional who understands the community where the home is located. They will have a better understanding of the features and amenities in the community.
The Benjamin Team specializes in home sales in Gold Canyon and the East Phoenix Valley. They are highly knowledgeable about selling real estate in the communities of Gold Canyon, Apache Junction and other East Phoenix Valley communities. If you need to sell a property outside of the East Phoenix Valley, The Benjamin Team will be happy to provide you a referral to a qualified real estate professional that specializes in your area.
| Note – if you need an agent who specializes in a part of the Phoenix area which we do not personally cover, we have a wide network agents in other parts of the Phoenix marketplace who we can refer you to, who will do a good job for you. |
Step Two: Property Evaluation – A Competitive Listing Price Is Critical
In this market price is key. Your agent can help you in understanding the true market value of your property. Over-price your home and it will sit and sit — and not sell. In this current economy and current market setting a competitive price that gets you “in front of the market” and not trailing the market is critical to getting a home sold. Buyer’s will look at price as their first criteria. Unfortunately it does not matter “how much you need to make on the home” — the deciding factor of if your home will sell or not is what the buying public will pay. Also, set your listing price too high and even if you get an offer, the home will not appraise – no it will not appraise and the buyer will not be able to get a loan to buy your home. When an appraiser goes to a home, they lump all the comparable homes in the area together to make an evaluation — foreclosures, short-sales and “traditional” sales.
Your home’s condition is also a critical factor in the sale process. Other than price, how your home looks is right up there in importance along with location. The Benjamin Team can help you evaluate your home’s condition and offer suggestions on how to “stage your home” before Buyers arrive. Simple and inexpensive changes may have a dramatic effect on your property’s curb appeal and attractiveness to home buyers.
Step Three: Targeted Marketing Tailored to Your Unique Property
A Comprehensive Marketing Plan is needed for your home when it’s time to sell. The unique selling points for your property and the communities where it is located need to be reviewed. It is these unique points that need to be conveyed to potential Buyers.
Marketing strategies need to be tailored to expose your property to the maximum amount of qualified potential buyers. Local Buyers are not the only potential Buyers for your home. Phoenix’s rapid growth is due to the many purchasers relocating from other parts of the country. If you list with an agent that does not provide your property nationwide exposure, you are missing out on thousands of motivated potential Buyers seeing your property.
Many agents list a property on the Multiple Listing Service and “hope for the best.” However the market shows that utilizing a combination of traditional and cutting edge electronic mediums is most often the best way to market your property. Strategies need to vary depending on the property and the community where the property is located. We are always re-evaluating our marketing and if we begin to see something new is working then we add it, or if something is not any longer achieving results, then we drop that and put our energy into something that will better serve the client.
Remember if you have not sold a home in a few years the techniques that were used the last time you sold simply may not any longer be ones that will work. For example, it used to be that open house events and home viewings were a wonderful opportunity for getting your house noticed in a big way. However, in today’s market there is a much larger risk that some of these random people who might come into your home in an Open House situation may be more interested in what they can steal from your home than your home itself.
Open house thieves are quick to size up the flow of the crowd and opportunities to steal. Favorite targets include glassware, silverware, jewelry, laptops, and prescription drugs. Some thieves are even cagey enough to steal only a few pills instead of the whole bottle so the theft will go unnoticed. Or they may take over-the-counter medicines. And if there is any mail or paperwork of the owner’s lying about they may steal this and use it as an Identity Theft tool. For all these reasons we no longer recommend Open Houses. It is much more to the seller’s advantage to have the people entering their home to be already be Pre-Qualified for a loan, which means that someone has gone through some review and analysis of who they are. This is just one of the examples of how the market has changed in the past few years and why you need an agent who is on top of it and looking out for your interests.
Step Four: Contract Negotiation and Screening
With more than a dozen+ years of experience in the real estate industry, The Benjamin Team provides expert negotiation of potential offers. Property Closings in Arizona are handled by Escrow firms, therefore the majority of Arizona real estate transactions are performed without the supervision of a real estate attorney. This makes an experienced agent your best safeguard for avoiding problems.
After-Sale Service
Some agents seem to disappear between acceptance of a contract until the time the home actually closes. The Benjamin Team provides clients comprehensive after-sale service to ensure a smooth closing after a sale contract is accepted. We make every effort to make your real estate transaction as stress free as possible.