Seller's Guide

Everything you need to know about putting your home on the market, accepting an offer, and closing on your home.

A Step-by-Step First Time Seller's Guide

Putting your home on the market can be a stressful process, especially when you don’t know what to expect. Fortunately, with the help of an experienced team of real estate agents and this easy to follow guide, you can smoothly complete the process. Following these steps will help you prepare so you can get organized and sell your home for the best price possible.​​​​​​​

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Step 1: Understand Why You're Selling

What do you want to accomplish with the sale of your home? Do you want to make a certain amount of money that you can put toward a larger or nicer home? Do you need to sell it as soon as possible to facilitate a move to a new city or area? Once you understand your needs, you can better craft your offer. For example, if you need to sell quickly, you might want to price your home lower than if your goal is to make a certain profit margin. Make sure you convey these needs to your team of REALTORS® once you choose one so they can adjust your selling price accordingly.

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Step 2: Determine Selling Price

Knowing how to price your home is one of the most important parts of the selling process. When you set a fair price in the beginning, you’ll get the most interest from other real estate agents and prospective buyers. Overpricing your home could lead to reduced interest, and underpricing leads to receiving less than what your home is worth. Working with a team of real estate agents is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. A team of real estate agents with experience can determine what other comparable homes are selling for, evaluate the current market, and may even suggest a home appraisal.

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Step 3: Start Preparations

If you’ve kept your home in showroom condition since you’ve lived in it, you’re in the minority of homeowners. Once you price your home, it’s time to start getting it ready to be shown to potential buyers. This includes getting rid of clutter, depersonalizing the space so that buyers can envision themselves in the space, making any small repairs, and doing a deep clean to make sure your home is in pristine condition.

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Step 4: Develop a Marketing Strategy

We will develop a marketing strategy that is perfect for advertising your home. This involves listing the home and then driving the right people to that listing through social media campaigns, agent-to-agent referrals, traditional media, or SEO advertising. Our team creates a marketing campaign that aims to get the most possible traffic to your listing in the first three weeks after becoming a client.

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Step 5: Evaluate Offers

Receiving an offer is an exciting part of the process, but it doesn’t mean the journey is over. We will evaluate each offer and make sure the party making the offer is prequalified or pre-approved by a mortgage lender and that their offer is acceptable to you. If the offer is too low, you can make a counter-offer or offer other ways to bridge the gap, such as covering some or all of the closing costs, making repairs, adjusting the move-in date, or leaving some appliances or fixtures for the new buyer.

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Step 6: Accept an Offer

Once we deem the offer is acceptable, we will review the proposed contract to make sure it’s all in order and includes the necessary components such as deposit amount, down payment, financing, inspection rights and repair allowances, contingencies, settlement date, and a list of fees and who will pay them. When both parties have agreed to the term, a final contract will be prepared by your team of real estate agents.

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Step 7: Get Ready to Close

You have accepted an offer and are now very close to the end of your selling journey. But first, you and the buyer must make a list of what needs to be done before closing. In some cases, your home may need to be formally inspected, surveyed, and appraised. In other cases, major or minor repairs will need to be made before the house can close. We will head up efforts to develop and execute this list, get each action item paid for by the correct party, and make sure everything is in order by the closing date. A few days before the closing date, we will call the company closing the transaction to make sure everything is ready to go. If you haven’t done so already, you also need to make arrangements to move out of the home so the new buyer can take possession.

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Step 8: Close

You’ve reached the last step in the seller’s process. When you close on a home you are selling, you are legally transferring ownership of the property to the new buyer. We will meet with the company closing the transaction to sign the final paperwork and go over any issues that have not yet been taken care of. During this time, you can also make plans with your team of REALTORS® to handle final details such as canceling utilities, cable, and lawn or trash services, changing the name on accounts that the new owner is retaining and ensuring the new owner has instructions for all appliances that will remain in the home.

Congratulations!

Once you have sold your home, you’re free to take the next step on your journey. Whether this is relocating to a new city, moving into a larger home, or downsizing and enjoying your life as empty-nesters, knowing all your selling responsibilities have been taken care of will help you achieve peace of mind for your new path.

Our Testimonials

See why our clients love working with us.

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Arthur E. Mandelbaum

I am a real estate attorney with 35 years of experience. I have worked with hundreds of real estate agents in Indiana and elsewhere over my career. Lynn Reecer is the most knowledgeable, prepared, well-versed, attentive real es...
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Mark Paul Smith

Special thanks to long-time friend and real estate innovator Lynn Reecer for helping us sell The Castle at 1202 West Wayne Street. Lynn led the way through a long and winding road from listing to closing. Through sales negotiat...
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Kris Mink

Lynn was amazing to work with - buying and selling! She went out of her way to ensure all needs were met even after closing. She is very knowledgeable and passionate about real estate, and even more about her community. We woul...
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Steve Mink

Lynn and her staff were great to work with. Lynn got us top dollar for our Condo and helped us with the purchase of our new home. Lynn continues to be a huge help after the sale. We had some issues with our new home and Lynn he...
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Nicole Saunders

Lynn was an absolute pleasure to work with! She is very patient and knowledgeable. We moved across the country prior to selling our home and we were able to put our full confidence in Lynn and her team to get the job done! Lynn...
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Jennifer Houser

Lynn has been at the beginning, during, and after the sale of our home! Always willing to help & advise, even with our new build. She has an outgoing personality, passion about selling homes, and decor ... which makes her wonde...
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Tammy G

We recently had the pleasure of working with Lynn and Kate from Reecer Real Estate Advisors. These were two exceptional agents who went above and beyond to make our home-buying experience seamless and enjoyable. They knew the l...
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Robert Stine

Lynn and Kate are the best! They recently helped us with sale of a property and identified an ideal buyer for us at top price without the property even needing to be listed. Service and responsiveness were perfect, but even bet...
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Bradley Gough

“I just wanted to take a minute to thank you (Kelly) and Lynn for helping Stephanie and I find our Dream Villa in Herron Preserve. My Family and I have done numerous transactions with you and your Team and you have always looke...
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Mike Kubacki

Lynn really nailed it. She and her team understand the market dynamics of the lake scene very well. We got the right price. The whole process went very smoothly, and in only a few weeks. Very pleasant and professional.
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Peter and Karen McMahon

“ We have now purchased two homes from Lynn, and could not feel any more fortunate to have met her. She is outstanding! I think she’s more like a “match maker”; she knew what we wanted in a lake house and when she got a new lis...
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D. Amen

When we first moved to Fort Wayne, Lynn gave us a tour of the city, introducing us to different neighborhoods. We have seen a variety of different homes with them, and they have demonstrated a unique ability to connect us with ...
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Joe and J. Malfait

They were always willing to go the extra step to get our lake house sold, and also to help us in our negotiations to purchase a new home. They were always available, either by phone, text, or email. We would highly recommend th...
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B. Zielke

I would recommend Lynn Reecer, without any reservation whatsoever to handle your real estate needs...whether buying or selling. With 40 years of experience in business and not for profits, I have become convinced that things ge...
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Doug and M. Copley

We can’t thank Reecer Properties enough for doing such a great job of selling our Lake Wawasee condo. We had multiple showings and got multiple offers! When we first decided to sell the condo, we realized that it looked ‘old an...
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Jane and Dr. G. Schmitt

We couldn’t have been more pleased with the job done. Their combined talents result in a well- organized and efficient team. Communication was always prompt and accurate, they used state of the art marketing media and were exce...
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Todd and A. Freeland

We tried to sell our house for about four years. It was a very difficult listing, as it was a historic home with a substantial addition. We worked with four other realtors and went all that time with very few showing and no off...
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D. Lance

When my wife and I decided to list our lake house last year, we didn’t have great expectations. We had listed our house the year prior and were discouraged by the results. We wanted to find a Real Estate firm that would take a ...
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R. Boyd

I don’t often use superlatives, but for Lynn and her colleagues at Reecer Properties: ‘Wow! Just, wow! Lynn suggested a Luxury Auction may be the best way to sell our condo. One of the features of going the luxury auction route...
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