Selling your home in today’s hot real estate market is the easiest step.

Sure it’s a pain getting a house ready to sell.  Clean-up, declutter, fix-up, and toss out.  Add to the mix multi-page listing contracts and photographing the inside and outside the property.

Once your property actually goes “live” on the CincyMLS, and some sellers are signing a contract to sell within 12-24 hours.  The Cincinnati real estate market remains a seller’s market.  Homes priced correctly when they hit the market are selling quickly.  The average Days on Market (DoM) in the four-county area is 24.  According to the Multiple Listing Service of Cincinnati, 79% of single-family homes are selling in 30 days or less.

Right now current conditions make selling a well-priced property easy.

Selling a home is easy however moving the process along to closing can sometimes be frustrating and maddening.  Buyers, sellers, and their agents have to negotiate around inspections, appraisals, insurance, and financing contingencies.  Lots of problem opportunities if people don’t pay attention to contract clauses as well as dates and notification requirements.  In short, the buyer and seller signed a legally binding contract that must be followed.  Dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s”.

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In addition to providing reams of documentation to the lender, sellers must stay on top of loan officers and staff to keep the mortgage process in motion.  Along with a variety of fixable hurdles ( honey-do list after inspections) one hurdle that’s not negotiable is appraisals.  For whatever reason, if the property doesn’t meet the sale price the lender will require adjustments to the price for the deal to close.  Either buyer puts down more money and/or the seller lowers the price or the deal is dead.  So be prepared.

Constantly changing conditions

Currently, Cincinnati is a seller’s market but conditions change rapidly.  You and your agent need to stay on top of current market trends for your specific neighborhood.  Pricing a home based on a neighbor’s list price usually doesn’t work out well.  Many of the slow-selling homes started out with overly aggressive pricing and very slowly drop their prices every week or 2 weeks.  And after 40 or 50 days sellers begin to wonder what happened to all the buyers?  

Selling a home is like a puzzle.  Sometimes the pieces go together and snap perfectly in place.  Other times, the pieces need lots of shuffling, and some need to be picked off the floor in order to complete the picture.