Selling Your San Ramon Home

How Hard Can It Be?

Selling your home in today’s market seems easy. But selling your San Ramon home for the best price and in the timescale that works best for you is a bit more challenging.

All real estate agents are not the same! You need an experienced agent with a well-defined strategy that will get you the best net return on your investment. The time has long gone when all that was necessary was for an agent to put up a For Sale sign, list the home on the Multiple Listing Service and place a few ads in the local paper.

First Things First – What’s Your San Ramon Home Worth?

The first place many homeowners turn to when they raise that question is the Internet. They don’t want to bother (or more likely, be bothered by) a Realtor at that stage in the game. And as far as answers go, the Internet has plenty. The question is, how good are they?

Can an automated valuation model (AVM) really give you even a ball-park answer to the question “What’s My Home Worth?” In most cases the answer is definitely not. There are some exceptions though.

If you have a “cookie-cutter” home that was built in the last 10-20 years in a neighborhood of similar homes that turn over reasonably quickly, the AVM may provide a very good ball-park figure. This is even more likely if your home has typical upgrades.

The reason the AVM works in some cases, but not others, is because of how it works. Taking the number of bedrooms and baths together with the size of the home, it extracts the recent sale prices of similar homes. Then calculating the sale price per square foot, it arrives at a figure that it thinks your home could be worth, usually coming up with a low figure, average figure and high figure. There has to be a range because the AVM has no idea how your home compares to others in terms of upgrades and condition.

So if you have a “cookie-cutter” home, then by all means, visit two or three websites offering an AVM solution to the question. 

If, like most of us though, your home is not virtually identical to the home down the street, complete the form below, and get a meaningful ball-park figure that you can at least start with. I should emphasize the ball-park element though. The more information you can provide about condition, upgrades, improvements etc., the more accurate will be the result.

When you really want an accurate estimate of what your home is worth, though, the only way to find out is to consult a Realtor.

When you are ready to find out what your home is really worth in the present market (and get some input on cost-effective ideas to increase it’s value and appeal), let me know, and Michelle and I will be happy to let you have our thoughts and suggestions. You can call me any time on (925) 997-1585 or email me at bernard@bernardgibbons.com.

When You Are Ready To Sell - Our Structured Approach to Selling Your San Ramon Home

It’s more than just marketing. That comes later. The first step is to do everything possible to make sure that your home has the maximum appeal to buyers when it hits the market.

Preparation

The first step is to arrange for a home inspection and a termite inspection. This is all at our own expense and one of us will be there for these inspections. This gives you time to carry out any repairs and take care of any deferred maintenance issues. So much better to find out at this stage, rather than waiting until a sale has been agreed. And remember that home buyers will pay more for a home that clearly does not need any work doing on it.

Staging

At the same time the inspections are being carried out, we can arrange for you to have a consultation with our stager. Again, this is at no cost to you. There is no doubt that staged homes sell homes for higher prices. Our stager will walk through the home with you and agree a plan of action. This may include removal or re-arrangement of furniture, changing the lighting and/or carrying out some painting among other things. When all this has been done and the home is virtually ready for sale, she will return to add the finishing touches, which could be anything from a few decor items to bringing in some rented furniture.

Cost-Effective Improvements

Based on our experience of listing and selling homes in our market, and taking our stager’s suggestions into consideration, we will make recommendations on action items and enhancements you should consider to get the highest possible price in today’s market.

Suggestions may include something as small as re-painting your front door in a welcoming color or adding color to your front yard with bedding plants but sometimes they are more ambitious. Would you consider having a kitchen or bathroom remodel before selling your San Ramon home? How about new flooring or landscaping? It’s easy to assume that this wouldn’t make sense but in practice, it often does. To put it another way – would you spend $5,000 on updating a tired kitchen if it would add $10-15,000 to the sale price?

Presentation

The home is now prepared for sale. Now we are ready for photography and videography. High dynamic range (HDR) photos will showcase your home to a spectacular degree on the Internet and in printed materials, plus a walk through video, also on the Internet, allows potential buyers to get a real feel for your home before they even see it. We also make use of aerial drone photography when appropriate.

Our Marketing Plan

We have two target audiences, potential buyers, who may be local or from outside the area, and agents who are working with potential buyers.

To promote your home to buyers, we will make extensive use of the Internet, using a variety of approaches – websites, real estate portals like Zillow, Trulia and Redfin, social media networking and more. And we still make use of print media in our marketing, using all appropriate publications.

Within Compass, we have a proprietary Agent Networking Tool that enables us to identify every agent who has represented a buyer of a home similar to yours in the past year or so. We contact every one of these agents as there is a good chance they know of a potential buyer for your home.

We also have “Compass Coming Soon”, which enables us to carry out advanced promotion of your home a gauge the level of interest without adding to its “Days on Market” as it would if it was listed on the MLS. A good analogy is to think of the power of a trailer in promoting a new movie. Then the first weekend it is active, the level of interest is at its peak.

Our Marketing Materials

Our objective is to maximize the appeal of your home by setting it apart from the rest. Staging deals with this to a large extent and our marketing materials re-affirm it.

Many real estate brochures focus on the features of the home. “4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2750 sq.ft. on a half-acre lot” etc. The Compass media team creates appealing “lifestyle” brochures that focus on showing what it would be like to live there. This, combined with vibrant HDR photography and video, leave a lasting impression on buyers, encouraging them to envisage the home as their own.

The above is just an outline of how we would go about selling your San Ramon home. There really is a lot that I have not covered here. Our system has been developed and refined over many years and it has proven to be very effective. I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you, take a look at your home, and give you my initial thoughts on making any cost-effective changes.

Can we help you? Please use the form below to get in touch and we’ll get back to you very quickly. Or call Bernard Gibbons any time on (925) 997-1585.