Timeline for Buying or Selling a Home

Are you looking to sell your home before the market cools down? Are you considering buying a home before the school year starts next summer? According to the latest report from NVRA, the average days on the market for a single-family home is 12 days - down 47.8% from a year ago. Two weeks is a speedy time to sell or buy a home, but both sides of the process are drawn out weeks and even months before a home transfers hands. Keep reading to learn about the home buying and selling timeline.

 

Selling a Home Timeline

 

Up To 2 Months Before Listing

 

Decision Time

We're going to put a caveat here. Ideally, you will give yourself a month or two before listing your home on the market to ensure everything's prepared. Of course, there are exceptions to this recommendation. Are you relocating for a new job? This timeline will accelerate considerably. Want to capture the last momentum of a buying season? Move quickly to get listed before things quiet down. That's why the next step in the timeline is so important.
 

Find Your Realtor®

A local Realtor® can help you plan and strategize the best listing approach for your home. They will consider existing market factors, the condition of your home, your priorities for selling, and give you a detailed listing plan to achieve your real estate goals, whether selling quickly or for top dollar. Check out our helpful post to learn about what to look for in a listing agent. 

Thinking about selling your home yourself? Check out the pros and cons.

Financials

Before going further, check your financials and make sure that the listing price your Vermont Real Estate Company agent recommended and the final number you agree on will work for you. How much do you owe on your home? Will you be paying out of pocket to sell your home? Will you cover closing costs? Talk to your mortgage lender to get a clear picture of your mortgage payout to make sure you’re satisfied. Don’t forget to consider closing, relocation, and repair costs. 

 

Up To 1 Month Before Listing

 

Repairs

Look around your house and start making those pesky and major repairs you’ve been putting off for weeks, months, and years. Your Vermont Real Estate Company agent can help you prioritize repairs that are necessary against repairs that you can probably skip. You have a lot of leverage in a sellers’ market, and antsy buyers might not worry about a dripping faucet or squeaking fan. On the other hand, fixing a leaking roof could save you trouble during the inspection.

Declutter and Polish

You should definitely take some time to deep clean and declutter. Freshen up your exterior and organize the interior. Research shows that homes with high curb appeal sell for an average of 7% more than similar houses. Consider a storage unit or a yard sale to get overflowing closets and garages under control. Start packing If you have the flexibility to move to your new home. You want to make your home as inviting as possible to potential buyers. Remove your personal bias in how you laid out a room. You don’t want buyers thinking, ‘why did they set it up this way? How are we going to use this space?’ Talk to your Vermont Real Estate Company agent about staging tips and what they think will make your space present best. Not sure where to start? See how we can help with that!

 

Up To 2 Weeks Before Listing

 

Prep and Photos

Put the final touches on your home staging efforts. Photo and video are critical to any home sale marketing plan. With more buyers shopping online than ever before, you’re going to want to make sure that you put your best foot forward. Take a look at our Pre-Shoot Checklist and talk to your Vermont Real Estate Company agent about professional photography.

 

Up To 1 Week Before Listing

 

Marketing Materials

If you’re selling on your own, then make sure you have showing sheets, your photography, your MLS description, and your for sale sign. If you’re selling with us, we’ll make sure we have all the material needed for our email announcements, social media posts about your property, and digital advertising to spread the word beyond your typical syndicated websites (Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia), print materials, and more. Considering selling on your own? Take a look at a few of the pros and cons. 
 

Listed

Launch Your Listing

The last two months of hard work are paying off. Time to put a sign in the ground and post your listing to the MLS. Your Vermont Real Estate Company agent will be ready to answer questions, field showing requests, and get your home sold. 

 

Up To 1 Month After Listing

 

Showings and Open Houses

Open houses were slowing down over the last few years of the pandemic while personal showings and virtual showings from the phone grew in high demand. But, open houses are back and more popular than ever. They are a great way to get a lot of buyers through the door and showcase the demand for your home. At this time, you should be living in a perpetual state of cleanliness, making sure your house looks just like the photos online. Some sellers want to be around for showings and open houses to help sell the house. We strongly discourage this. Often buyers feel uncomfortable when the seller is present. Trust your Vermont Real Estate Company agent to represent you and get your home sold. 

Review Offers & Negotiate

Your Vermont Real Estate Company agent will present you with any and all offers that come in. They will help you review contingencies and terms to help you understand which offer is best for you. You then decide whether you want to accept, counter, or reject the offer.

Appraisal & Home Inspection

Most lenders will require an appraisal before they will release financing to your buyer. Your Vermont Real Estate Company agent will be there to arrange schedules and grant access to the property. If the appraisal checks out then you are free to move on to closing and completing the sale. If the appraisal comes up short, the buyer will have to come up with the difference, re-negotiate, or drop out of the deal. 

In this market, some qualifying buyers are bypassing appraisals with an appraisal waiver. This waiver means that the lender will not send an in-person appraiser to determine the value of the home. Rather, they’ll rely on originator software to determine the current market value.

If your buyer didn’t waive their home inspection, then you will also need to grant access to a professional home inspector. Buyers with a home inspection contingency have a window of days to back out of the deal in the event the inspection returns major issues. It is, however, a common misconception that lenders require a home inspection. In this competitive market, many buyers are waiving the inspection completely. 

Once you set a closing date it’s time to start packing up and prepare to move out. Sellers can ask for a post-close occupancy agreement if the closing timeline doesn’t work for them. Talk to your Vermont Real Estate Company agent for all your options.
 

Closing

At closing, you sign over the title of your home, hand over the keys and complete the sale of your home. Congratulations! 

 

Buying and Selling

If you’re looking to buy and sell your home in today’s market you’ll need to have a plan. Whether you remove contingencies from your purchase offer or build a contingency into the sale of your home, it’s important to get tactical with your Vermont Real Estate Company agent to make the process as smooth as possible. Read how. 

 

Buying a Home Timeline

 

Up To 12  Months Before Closing

 

Decision Time

So you’re ready to buy a home. Whether you’re a first-time home buyer, upgrading for a growing family, investing, or downsizing because of an empty nest, it’s important to line up all the steps involved in the buying process so you’re prepared for the road ahead. The current sellers’ market means you need to be ready to act quickly to land the home you want. The current state of the market makes it difficult to predict how quickly you’ll find, submit an offer, and close on your home. Low inventory and high demand mean that multiple offer situations are likely, and it might take a few offers before yours is selected. 

 

A Few Days

 

Pre-Approval

If you don’t plan to pay all cash for your next home you will need to secure financing. Before you start your search or find a real estate agent, talk to a lender and get pre-approved for a mortgage. Your lender will consider your salary, assets, credit score, and more to determine how much they will lend and on what terms. With a pre-approval letter, you can set realistic budgets, identify the locations and amenities you can afford, and find a buyer agent to represent you. If you’re worried about fluctuating interest rates, check out this helpful article to learn more about what they mean for your buying journey.  

Find Your Realtor®

A qualified buyers’ agent is a critical team member to have on your side. They will act as your eyes and ears keeping tabs on the fast-paced market. This is particularly important in towns where listings don’t make it through their first weekend before an offer is accepted. A buyers’ agent costs you nothing (except for a few particular for sale by owner situations) and has a fiduciary responsibility to look out for your best interests. Don’t pick the first agent that is referred to you, take some time and interview a few agents to find the agent who is right for you. Read this helpful article to see what to look for in a buyers’ agent.

Make a Need, Want, and Wishes List

Sit down with your Vermont Real Estate Company agent and build a need, want, and wishes list. What are the deal breakers of your home search? What are some nice-to-haves that you would be comfortable eliminating if the right home came along? Setting your own expectations will help you make a quick offer when the house that matches your priorities comes along. Create an account on VermontRealEstateCompany.com to set up an automatic alert search, share listings with your agent, and take notes on your favorite listings. Take a look at our five tips for an effective online search.

Thinking about buying a piece of land and building on it instead? Check out our Vermont Land Series.

 

2 to 6 Months Before Closing

 

View Homes and Continue Your Home Search

This phase has the potential to be the longest part of your buying process. It could move as quickly as a few weeks or as long as multiple months. Talk to your buyers’ agent about setting up private showings, putting together an open house tour of homes, and any virtual showings in case you can’t make it to the house yourself. Depending on the inventory in the town you’re searching in, you might face stiff competition from other buyers. Talk to your Vermont Real Estate Company agent to understand different strategies and tactics you can take to stay competitive.

Make an Offer & Negotiate

Your lender will require an appraisal before they approve your loan and release funds. Your appraisal helps your lender validate your offer price. In the event that you default on your loan, the lender wants to make sure that the value of the home will cover what remains on the mortgage. Sometimes, appraisals don’t keep up with the growing market. We call this an appraisal gap, and it can delay your closing significantly, if not ruin your deal. Take a look at our tips on what to do when there is an appraisal gap. The best thing you can do in every situation is to consult with your Vermont Real Estate Company agent to prepare for every scenario. 

 

1 Month Before Closing

 

Appraisal

Your lender will require an appraisal before they approve your loan and release funds. Your appraisal helps your lender validate your offer price. In the event that you default on your loan, the lender wants to make sure that the value of the home will cover what remains on the mortgage. Sometimes, appraisals don’t keep up with the growing market. We call this an appraisal gap, and it can delay your closing significantly, if not ruin your deal. Take a look at our tips on what to do when there is an appraisal gap. The best thing you can do in every situation is to consult with your Vermont Real Estate Company agent to prepare for every scenario. 

Inspection

These days, many buyers are waiving their inspection contingencies from their offers to make the offer more attractive. If you include an inspection contingency you run the risk of having a rejected offer. Buyers who keep their contingency will have the home inspected by a professional home inspector. The resulting report will outline minor and major issues with the home. With an inspection contingency, buyers have a number of days following the inspection to back out of the deal and recover their earnest money deposit. The most important piece is making sure you’re comfortable and confident with your offer. Talk with your Vermont Real Estate Company agent to understand the pros and cons of waiving your inspection.

Loan Approval

Once your appraisal is cleared and your lender underwrites your loan, you will receive a closing disclosure document. This outlines all of the details of your loan, your APR, and closing costs. Take your time reviewing the document, and don’t be afraid to ask questions for clarification. Your Vermont Real Estate Company agent is happy to help you.

 

Close

Congratulations, you made it home! On the closing day, you’ll need to sign your final closing documents, complete deposits, and take ownership of your new home.

 

Ready to start your real estate journey? Connect with our friendly and knowledgeable real estate agents!