Wallowa County Real Estate
Listing 101
Okay, you have made the call to me to visit with you about listing your property for sale... What can you expect from me?
We will arrange a time to get together at your home/property.
From this meeting, I will be able to take pictures, notes and just visit with you about your home.
I will go back to my office and within a few days, I will have had time to check with the courthouse for legal information and to compile a Comparative Market Analysis. This will enable me to compare your home with others that are currently listed and also with ones that have sold within the last six months. This gives me the information to determine a reasonable listing price for your home.
We will meet again and review the document I prepared for you.
At this time, if you have decided to list your home/property, I will prepare the listing forms for your signature. The forms will include the Listing Contract, the Seller Property Disclosure (4 pages), the Siding Disclosure, the Lead Base Paint Disclosure (if built prior to 1978), and the Agency Disclosure.
Okay - It's Listed, Now What?
I will:
- Input the information into the Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS)
- (this allows all the Realtors in the world, actually, to access your information)
- Put a Wallowa Mountain Properties For Sale sign on your property
- Send the information/pictures to Wallowa Mountain Properties webmaster for input onto the company website: www.wallowamountainproperties.com . You may also see the information and pictures on my personal website: www.wallowavalleyrealestate.com
- Write ad copy to be used in all advertising. This includes the Wallowa Mountain Properties Brochures and Flyers, Wallowa County Chieftain, the NE Oregon Real Estate Guide, The Real Estate Source, and other individual advertising avenues.
- Put your property on the weekly Realtor tour on Tuesday. This may take more than one week to accomplish as the tour schedule changes throughout the towns of the county.
- As other brokers have clients come in that are interested and qualified for your type of property, either myself or Belinda (from our front desk) will contact you to make an appointment for showings. Afterwards, I will find out from the other agent how the showing went and I will call you with the details.
If the showing went very well, we may have an offer to review. If this is the case, we will meet and go over the Sale Agreement.
From this point forward, it may get interesting and can be frustrating to the Seller, or Buyer, as well. This is where working with a Realtor can help relieve your stress and come to terms with the Buyers on your property.
- You, as the Seller, may accept their offer or may counter the offer.
- You accept their counter or else make a new counter back to the Buyer and this happens until either you come to an agreement as to purchase price or one of you rejects the other offer with no counter.
- At the time of listing the property you will have filled out a four page Seller Property Disclosure, Lead Base Paint Disclosure and Siding Disclosure. These documents will be given to the Buyer's Agent and they will go over these with their Buyer and if they have any unanswered questions, they will contact your Realtor to find out the answers.
- Okay, home inspection is ordered and completed. What if... there are some items on the inspection report that the Buyers don't feel comfortable with. Their agent will write an addendum asking you, the Seller, to make the repairs specified. You will either agree to make the repairs or else say "no" they can do these. This opens it up again, whether you want to proceed or call it quits.
- Sometimes their Realtor will call for a septic inspection and a well flow test. The well purity test is required by the State of Oregon, paid for by the Seller, and will be performed sometime prior to close of escrow. The septic inspection and flow test are extra costs and may be paid for either by the Buyer or Seller.
- The bank/lender orders an appraisal of the property. The appointment is made with the homeowner and the licensed appraiser takes a look at the home and then will start the process of finding comparable sales within the last six months that would be somewhat similar.
- What if the appraisal comes in short of the purchase price???
Okay, again negotiations may be reopened.
The Buyer will have the option to either:
- pay the difference
- ask you, the Seller, to split it with them
- ask you, the Seller, to reduce to the appraised value. If none of the above happens, the deal will fail and earnest money will be returned.
Escrow is opened at Wallowa Title Co. here in Enterprise. What is escrow? This is where the sale agreement is given to the title company and they proceed to check the chain of title and for any liens that may have been placed on the property.
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The title company will prepare a "preliminary title report" that you, as the Seller, are obligated to purchase for the Buyer. It is showing that you have clear title to sell the property to them. This report will tell of any liens placed on the property by mortgage companies or others, any easements through the property and any judgments against the Seller or the Buyers that need to be acknowledged. Once this is approved by the Buyer, we will move towards the prearranged closing date. The lender continues to do their business through this time. They will be asking for verification of employment, bank statements, credit report/history, list of the Buyers' assets and debts, and various other things they want.
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The date is arriving for the closing.
- They will need to contact their insurance agency and arrange for homeowner's insurance to be ready for the property. Contact the appropriate utility companies about your purchase and make the necessary applications to have the power/water/sewer/propane/oil transferred out of your name. Your Realtor will help you with names of companies and/or make the calls for you.
- A couple of days prior to closing, the title company will contact your Realtor and arrange for a time that will be convenient for you to come to the title company to sign the documents. At this time, you will need to bring your identification and be prepared to sign a LOT of documents.
- On the closing date, the title company will have received the okay from their lender to go ahead and "fund" the purchase of their new home. With this authorization, the title company will record the deed and legally make the home theirs.
You will have an agreed upon number of days to vacate the property after the recording of the deed.
Let me be of service to you!
Real Estate Seller's Guide
It is important to attract as many qualified buyers as possible by preparing your home for sale as though you were in the Buyer's shoes. Make your home as appealing and uncluttered as the home you would like to buy and in so doing, improve the market value of your home. You'll understand how easy it can be to sell a Wallowa Mountain Property in no time- as well as in the nearby Enterprise Oregon or Joseph Oregon real estate market.
When you hire me to list/market/sell your property, I will...
- Provide you with pricing strategies for the Joseph, Enterprise, and Wallowa area.
- Help you define what needs done to your home or property for real estate marketing.
- Place a professional quality FOR SALE sign on your property.
- Produce full color brochures.
- Prepare professional advertising in the various Wallowa County real estate publications.
- Place your property on my personal website, www.wallowavalleyrealestate.com as well as the company website, www.wallowamountainproperties.com
- Help you showcase your property on www.realtor.com.
- Help you negotiate the best offer including all paperwork and forms.
- Guide you through the escrow and recording of the deed.
- Provide top level real estate expertise.
Outside
- Mow the lawn, trim trees and shrubs away from the house. Rake leaves, remove dead plants, flowers and shrubs.
- Put away tools, garbage cans, hoses, toys and building materials neatly in the garage.
- Check for broken roof shingles, straight lines on gutters, shutters, windows, and siding.
- Clear patios and decks of debris.
- Dress up the front yard around shrubs and home with freshly cleaned flower beds, decks, porches, carports. Your front entry is the first thing people see.
Remember: You only have ONE chance to make a first impression!
Inside
- Use bright light bulbs in light fixtures.
- Turn on all lights in the home for evening showings to welcome buyers.
- Fill the house with a pleasant aroma of cinnamon, vanilla or other fresh scent.
- Spotlessly clean woodwork, cabinets and carpeting throughout the house.
- Wash all windows, inside and out.
- Repaint walls if necessary in neutral colors.
Living Room
- Discard worn furniture and move extra to a storage area. Too much furniture makes rooms look small.
- Clear away all magazines, books, and unnecessary objects from rooms throughout the house.
- Take down pictures that hide walls. Patch holes and paint, if needed.
- Open curtains, blinds, shades. Let in the fresh light.
Kitchen
- Clean oven range and top.
- Replace broken appliances, repair squeaks, dripping faucets or drawers that stick.
Family Room
- Clean fireplace if summer time, have doors clean. In winter, have a fire burning.
- Replace carpet if worn, stained or a loud color, if possible.
- Create an easy-going, relaxed atmosphere in your family room.
Bathrooms
- Remove any unnecessary items from counter tops, tubs, commodes.
- Make each bathroom look like a guest bath. Sink, commode, bathtub, tile and shower curtain should look immaculate, no soap film or hair.
- Fix leaky faucets, rust stains, and faulty plumbing that may squeak or bind.
- Caulk and grout tile. Bleach discolored grout.
- Replace or remove any wallpaper that is not conservative.
- Place softer bulbs in bathroom fixtures and scented candle on the counter.
Bedrooms
- Try to have the bedroom look as simply furnished as possible
- Be sure all clothes are hanging up neatly and not lying around in the room.
- Make closets more appealing by storing off season clothes somewhere else.
Children's Bedrooms
- Here is a challenge! Ask children and teenagers to help by thoroughly cleaning up their rooms, removing all posters, questionable photographs, etc. Low lighting and clutter make bedrooms look smaller and darker than they are.
- Patch and paint walls if necessary.
- Open curtains and blinds.
Garage & Basement
- The perfect garage contains only cars, BUT if this is not possible, clean up, fix up, sell or toss out unneeded items.
- Neatly stack tools and clean up work bench and tidy up storage shelf areas.
- A finished basement is great! Just follow the same guidelines given for preparing the family room.
- If unfinished, make sure concrete floors are well swept and clean.
- Seal or paint concrete floors.
- Clean water heater, change filters and put strong light bulbs in fixtures.
- Turn on basement lights for showings.