Selling

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 agent 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 realtor once you choose one so he or she 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 real estate agent is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. An agent 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 two 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 agent.

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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 realtor 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.

Seller Stories

See why our clients love working with us.

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Rachael Currie

This market is full of chaos and uncertainty it can feel downright abrasive! But if you are in the market to buy or sell, this is one agent and team I can recommend with full certainty. Let Vignette Realty help to write your ne...
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Buyer

Rashaune De La Cruz was fantastic! She was so helpful every step of the way. She and her staff are professional, knowledgeable, and efficient. What impressed me most. Everything! She asked very specific questions about what kin...
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Betsy Baste

Rashaune De La Cruz was amazing! She was so helpful every step of the way. She and her staff are professional, knowledgeable and efficient. What impressed me most. Everything! 1. She made asked very specific questions about wh...
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Danny Moore

Danny Moore

Kristie and her amazing team at Vignette helped us sell our cherished cabin in Franklin. They were able to get us a strong offer within the first day of showings. Kristie is a great negotiator and really went above and beyond t...
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Jarred Meinhardt

José and the team at Vignette are really great to work with. We were looking for land in Franklin and not finding what we wanted online. José helped us find the property of our dreams and made the process easy for us to close. ...
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Katherine Horne

Katherine Horne

Rashaune and her colleagues went over and above to make sure our home purchase in Franklin went as smoothly as possible. Selling our home almost 7 hours away made some issues difficult and Rashaune was very accommodating for ou...
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Phyllis Leonard

Phyllis Leonard

Very professional service. Kristie was on top of all aspects of listing and selling our home. We would recommend Vignette Realty to anyone who is in the market to list their home or is looking to purchase a new home.
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Terry Blackwell

Terry Blackwell

Jeff was available 24/7 and responded quickly to any questions I had. The process of buying a place in another state became overwhelming at times. He helped me stay focused on the purchase and not all the issues with the home...
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Kimi Walker

They did an amazing job selling the house! We even got $12,000 over asking price. They were there every step of the way!
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Eric Smith

Eric Smith

We owned land in Franklin that we struggled to sell for a year+, so we decided to reach out to Vignette Realty for some help. Rashaune and her team quickly provided feedback and offered their expertise to list our property pro...
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Holly Finke

Holly Finke

Kristie Brennan and Vignette Realty were just the right mix of professional and personal to help us sell our family's vacation home. Their professional marketing plan along with Kristie's enthusiasm about our home and property ...
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Tim Osment

Tim Osment

Vignette and Kristie had us under contract within 2 weeks! They were prompt and professional throughout the sale. If the need arises, we will certainly use them again, whether buying or selling.
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Rick Ashley

Rick Ashley

Vignette Realty was fantastic to work with, both as a buyer and a seller. Be sure to ask for Ryan Cote. He was amazing at communicating with us through both deals and was there with suggestions and solutions if there was a bump...
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Jim Laffey

Jim Laffey

I have worked with so many REALTORS® over the years but I'd have to put Rashaune and The Vignette Team at the top of my list. Rashaune is an absolute pleasure to work with: knowledgeable, responsive, and professional in every w...
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Seven Rodgers

Rashaune went above and beyond with a “difficult” seller and the complicated closing involving international signatures. She looks so young (to me, everyone does) but she is a consummate Professional. The office staff also assi...
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Michael Hill

This review is mainly relevant to Aliyah, our realtor. We did have limited contact with the company but most of our business was done through Aliyah. We looked at a lot of properties before we found the right one and Aliyah was...
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David Newman

Kristie and her team at Vignette Realty were the perfect group to work with. It’s a seller's market in WNC and we were one of many families who were putting an offer on our home within days of it being on the market. She helped...
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Carolyn Bennett

Carolyn Bennett

Two years ago we were looking for a second home to buy as a vacation place. We talked to three different realtors and decided to go with Rashaune De La Cruz because of her apparent knowledge of the area and her interest in find...
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Kaitlyn Ledford

Kaitlyn Ledford

Working with Vignette Realty was a dream! Sky aided us in selling our home and made everything go smoothly. She was knowledgeable, professional, and just overall incredible. In addition to the agent herself being amazing, the p...
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Rebecca Frankel

Rebecca Frankel

Rashaune and her team at Vignette Realty worked so hard to sell our house during a time when it just wasn't a seller's market. We had a pretty big snag along the way and they came up with new ideas and never lost hope. Vignette...
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