You've Hired a Real Estate Agent to Sell Your House: Now What?

Let's face it – in today's fierce real estate market, home sellers need any competitive advantage that they can get. Lucky for you, real estate agents are available to ensure that you can maximize the value of your residence.

After you hire a real estate agent, the home selling may move quickly. In fact, the most common steps associated with the home selling process include:

1. Prepping Your House

As a home seller, you'll want to do everything possible to ensure that your residence looks great both inside and out.

Your real estate agent can help you prep your house before it is listed on the housing market. He or she may offer tips about how you can transform your home's ordinary interior into an exceptional one. Plus, your real estate agent can put you in touch with home cleaning companies, landscapers, painters and other home improvement professionals who can help you take your home's appearance to the next level.

2. Hosting Open Houses and Home Showings

Open houses and home showings represent essential parts of the home selling and homebuying cycles. For home sellers, these events enable you to showcase your residence to a large group of homebuyers quickly. Meanwhile, open houses and home showings enable homebuyers to browse a wide range of properties without delay.

Your real estate agent will keep you up to date about open houses and home showings. This real estate professional will always provide you with sufficient notice any time a homebuyer wants to check out your home as well.

Hosting open houses and home showings can be stressful, particularly for home sellers who have already committed substantial time and resources to improve their properties. Fortunately, your real estate agent will set up plenty of open houses and home showings to generate substantial interest in your property. He or she also will share homebuyers' feedback with you, ensuring that you can complete myriad home maintenance and upgrade projects as needed.

3. Responding to Home Offers

After your home reaches the real estate market, it may be only a matter of days before you receive your first offer.

Your real estate agent will inform you about any offers on your residence, and you likely will have 24 to 48 hours to determine whether to accept, decline or counter a homebuyer's proposal.

Although you only have a short amount of time to assess a homebuyer's offer, your real estate agent is happy to help you determine how to proceed. This real estate professional will enable you to establish realistic expectations for your home before you list your property. That way, you'll be able to see how your home stacks up against the competition and price it properly.

Furthermore, your real estate agent will negotiate with a homebuyer on your behalf. And if you don't feel comfortable with an offer on your home, your real estate agent will respond to a homebuyer's proposal accordingly.

There is no need to stress when you sell your home. If you hire an experienced real estate agent, you should have no trouble accelerating the home selling process and optimizing the value of your residence.