Selling your York County Home - Listing & Marketing Strategy

Homes in the Piedmont knows the York County Real Estate Market

In two visits or consultations, the York County SC real estate professionals at Homes in the Piedmont will work with you to determine the best strategy for marketing your Rock Hill South Carolina or Fort Mill SC home.  Our two-step home listing process is designed to ensure your home is presented to potential buyers using the most highly rated and successful methods for selling a home in our area.   

1. Pre-market Consultation

During the assessment meeting, we ask questions to better understand your situation and learn more about your home. We will ask about your home's size, condition, and approximate square footage.  Criteria like number of bedrooms, baths, garage spaces, lot size and recent upgrades are factors. Your answers provide essential information we need to effectively price and compile the right marketing strategy for your home.   Based on the data provided, we research the data bases exclusive to real estate agents and prepare a market analysis and right price strategy.

2. Listing Visit, Listing Agreement and the Sellers Disclosure

During our listing visit, we take a home tour.  As we walk through your home, we will have you point out features as if we were a potential home buyer. Knowing unique things about your home helps to paint a visual in a buyer's mind, so we may ask you to document the things you love about your home for inclusion in marketing materials.  We evaluate your home in the following categories and make any recommendations to improve appearance and enhance marketability.

Analyze Your Property

Creating Curb Appeal:  The value of curb appeal is that it entices drive-by buyers to want to come inside the home. Your yard should at least be comparable to the neighborhood; the cost of a quick clean up by a landscape crew usually pays for itself through a faster sale. Where feasible, we recommend a splash of color by planting annuals along the entryway or a large planter with a complementary plant. We will tell you if the exterior of the home needs any improvement.

Cosmetic changes and repairs:  A coat of paint and other affordable upgrades can take years off a homes appearance. A light neutral paint color has the broadest appeal and may also make rooms look larger.  We will help you weigh whether significant repairs or upgrades prior to putting your home on the market will generate return on investment.

Staging:  If you watch HGTV, then you have heard of staging.  Staging a home allows it to appeal to the widest audience. Do-it-yourself tips include putting out fresh flowers, playing music, and baking fragrant cookies before a showing. We suggest that you make your home show like a model-put away personal items and clutter, movie out furniture that may make a room look cramped or overcrowded, consider traffic patterns, clear counters and buy new throw pillows.  Consider getting a storage unit and use it.  In some cases, we recommend professional stagers who can refurnish the house with their own furniture inventory, particularly applicable for situations like vacant homes.

Tips for showing:  We see your home as a buyer will and we will recommend how to show it in its best light.  We provide materials that address the showing process.  Often this requires removing memorabilia that you love but that others may see as clutter. Turning on lights, even in the day time, makes your house appear more inviting, cheerful, and even spacious. A professional carpet cleaning can remove stains and odors that you may not notice but are immediately noticeable and often offensive to buyers who do not smoke or own pets.

Discuss our Customized Marketing Plan

Homes are unique, and all have positive and negative features.  The Piedmont market changes from month to month.  Homes in the Piedmont associates understand the local market.  We cover key reasons home sell, and discuss the primary reasons they do not.  Addressing as many negatives as possible before a home is put on the market is an essential step in establishing value.  We talk to you about the specific plans for marketing your home and help you understand the benefits of each.

Collect information for marketing

The right materials are essential to buyers who might be interested in your home.  We place a Home Book in the home to address questions buyers might have. What are the property taxes? When was the roof built? Is the home under termite bond?   What are utility costs?  Has the seller done upgrades? Our Home Book presents a professional overview, and it is a valuable sales tools.

Explain the forms and procedures

Selling a home is a major legal and financial transaction - one that is not done often.  Homes in the Piedmont provides proprietary and legal documents that are necessary to protect you. Standard real estate forms can be complex, and time is needed to complete each one.  Our discussion includes detailing the selling process from listing to closing.  We review each document and ensure that forms are properly completed.

Determine price and the estimate of net

What Is Your Home Worth? How have the current market conditions impacted home values?  Has your home appreciated?  Do you have an appraisal?  What kind of appraisal was done?  Was it for the purpose of re-financing?  How old is the appraisal?  Do you know what it is worth?  One of the biggest misconceptions is that the price one paid for a home has a correlation to value or current price.  Cost does NOT equal value.