Before You Sell Your Bay Area Home, Do These 3 Things

Before You Sell,

Think About These 3 Things

Decide how you're going to tackle these important selling issues.

So you're thinking about selling your San Francisco Bay Area home. Great! What you do next could mean the difference between your home selling for top dollar or your home sitting on the market for longer than it needs to (and that's no good!)

So before you call a Realtor, start thinking about the answers to these 3 questions.

1. Decide whether you want to sell your home as-is or make improvements.

Selling your home "as is" means that you don't make any home improvements prior to listing your home. So you might skip things like adding fresh coats of paint, updating flooring or countertops, or replacing the roof.

It also means that you will not be open to making any additional changes at the request of potential buyers.

Pros of selling As-is:

Cost-conscious: You don't need to secure additional funds to make upgrades and repairs.
Faster: Since you won't need to spend time finalizing finishes, waiting for materials and labor, coordinating with contractors etc., you can bring your home to market faster.

Cons of selling As-is:

Lower offers: Potential buyers will take note of needed updates and repairs that will need to come out of their wallet, resulting in sellers seeing lower offer prices. For many sellers, this a major con.

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In the San Francisco Bay Area in the 2 - 3 bedroom range, we tend to see more homes coming to the market with updates than without.

If one of your main desires is to sell your home for top dollar, you're somewhat flexible on when your home goes to market and you have the funds, it may be worth taking the time to make repairs.

Plus with the support of Bay Area home improvement assistance programs that make it easy to get the funds needed to do repairs without the seller having to bring the fund upfront, there are options for even the most cost-conscious sellers.

2. Decide whether you want to stage your home.

The process of staging a home involves removing personal belongings from your home and placing these things with neutral furniture and decor. The objective is to create a contemporary , tidy visual package, making it easy for potential buyers to imagine themselves living in your home. s far as financials go, make sure you meet these requirements:

Most homes in the San Francisco Bay Area are staged to at least a moderate degree before being listed. However, staging a home does present some challenges.

Pros of staging

Higher offers: Staging makes it easy for buyers to see the potential of a space, resulting in higher offers

Cons of staging

Cost: Furniture isn't fee. There is a cost associated with bringing in a stager. The average cost for most stagers in the SF Bay Area is $300 to $600 for an initial design consultation, and $500 to $600 per month per staged room, totaling to around $2,400 per month.
Difficult to live in: In order to get the most out of staging, sellers are advised to remove their personal belongings from the home once the home is on the market. This means that sellers will have to arrange for their belongings to be stored elsewhere until the home is sold.

3. Decide if you'll accept pre-emptive offers

Because the real estate market is so hot in the San Francisco Bay Area, Realtors often recommend setting something called an offer date. When an offer date has been established, it means that the seller(s) has decided that they want all interested buyers to wait to submit their offer on designated date.

An alternative to setting an offer date is deciding to accept pre-emptive offers. That means that the seller has set an offer due date, but will consider accepting an offer that comes through early... if it's strong enough.

Like most decisions, there are pros and cons to both strategies.

Pros of accepting pre-emptive offers

Early offers = strong offers: When you allow a pre-emptive offer despite the fact that an offer due date has been set, you know that the buyers that do select to submit offers an early are pretty serious. Their offers should be serious as well.
Fast sale: In the Bay Area's lightning fast market, buyers that send in emptive offers tend to know what they want and move quickly to secure it. That means your home could be done and sold after less than one week on the market.

Cons of accepting pre-emptive offers

Betting big: When a seller sets an offer due date but decides to accept a pre-emptive offer, the seller is taking a bet that the offers that would have come in on the offer due date would not have compared to the pre-emptive offer they chose to accept. Are you willing to take that bet?

Have more questions about what things you should think about before putting your home on the market? Send me a message and let's chat!

About the author

#RealEsateShouldBeFun! Gabrielle Hooks is a SF Bay Area Realtor focused on the East Bay. Raised in Fremont and a resident of Oakland since 2013, she knows Richmond to San Jose like the back of her hand.

Her real estate motto: Go big. Go bold!

Performing live karaoke, playing bass guitar and rollerskating are a few of her favorite things.