As purchase of a real estate represents a challenge for its buyer, so the sale of real estate can also be a long and troublesome process for its seller. Given that it is a sale of high value assets, the way of selling as well as the sales approach is largely different from the sale of goods and services in the store.  

The search for a buyer and sales process, which consists of putting in order real estate and related documentation, real estate advertising and negotiating with a potential buyer, and the final step of signing of a contract sale is not easy, and its complexity depends on a variety of factors. One of the factors is the fact that real estate market offers a large number of real estate for sale. Given the sensitivity of the business (due to the value of the property) and the breadth of the offer on the market, the buyers carefully consider various options and factors before deciding to buy a property.  

Among the listed factors, apart from the large property market offerings, the customer's decision and the overall success of the sale of the property is affected by the attitude and the relationship of the seller when conducting this procedure. In practice, the way a seller accesses the sale of real estate is extremely important because, if this approach is inadequate, then the vendor alone can be the biggest obstacle to the successful sale of his property.  

Therefore, if you are in a position to sell your property, we offer a few practical tips to help you put your approach into a fast and successful real estate sales realization. 

 

Making a final sales decision 

Selling real estate when you are the only owner is the simplest because you are the only one who decides to sell it. In that case, you do not need to agree with anyone else. The opposite situation occurs when selling real estate in your co-ownership.  

Co-ownership indicates that you are not the only owner but that there are one or more persons who have the right to make sales decisions. You can not decide on the sale of the property in question on your own, but you must definitely agree with the remaining co-owners, regardless of whether you are the closest person or business partner from the past with whom you are not in good relationships.  

The remaining co-owners need to be familiar with your intentions and the final sales decision you need to bring together. Though these directions from the point of view of reason are unnecessary and practically trivial, the practice shows that the owners of real estate that are on sale (even when the self-owners) often did not sure whether they want to sell their property. Such a situation, of course, is still much more complicated when it comes to the co-ownership, when more people are involved in the procedure.  

What follows when entering a real estate sale process under unwarranted decisions of the vendor itself or with the co-owner are extremely unpleasant situations in the presence of the buyer. They can often have financial or legal consequences, and ultimately making sales decisions or not selling decisions under pressure, etc. If they do not bear the consequences that will cost you at the moment, nobody wants to show an inexpressible side of the business before a potential buyer.  

Therefore, before you start selling your real estate, take time to look at all the factors such as the subjective value of the property in your life, the objective value of the real estate on the market and the price you can get for it, the desired selling time, the cost of that procedure and similar. 

Once when you have viewed all these elements objectively, you will come to the ratio of what you are investing in and what you can get from it. Based on this ratio, you should make a firm decision and stick to it in the future.  

Below, we will go through all of the elements you need to consider when making a sales decision, that will make it easier for you to sell your property and make the whole process less stressful. 

 

Inform yourself about the potential value of your real estate 

If you are a person who does not usually buy real estate on an everyday basis, you may not be familiar with the price trends on its market nor with the real estate market value. If you recognize yourself in this role, it is advisable to contact an expert who can help you to estimate your property's market value to ultimately determine an adequate selling price that is in line with its market value.  

In assessing the value of the property, an authorized expert witness or civil engineer can assist you and will thoroughly analyse and accurately elaborate the value of your property. If you do not have such person close to you, this procedure will cost you something, but you will have a precise analysis.  

An alternative variant is to contact one of the experienced real estate brokerage experts. Their estimate of the value of your real estate will not be based on a comprehensive and accurate elaborate because it is not a part of the expertise and authority of an intermediary, but you can therefore get a rough orientation for the value of your property.  

Whatever you decide, if you are not a good marketer, do not let this fact make less effective and slower selling of your real estate or bring you into an inconvenience during the sales process itself. 

 

Determine selling strategy 

By determining your sales strategy, you will make easier the sales of your property. You can enter into the sales process independently or by using brokers' services, that is, a combination of independent and brokerage work. You determine how you will approach the sale and the time period in which the sale is to be realized. You need to determine the time framework in which you want to sell your property in order to build a sales strategy, whether it's sales through agents or self-selling.  

Everyone wants to sell their property as soon as possible, and not look for a buyer for years. As time passes, market opportunities change. Real estate prices are growing and falling in line with the trend in supply and demand for houses and flats. Locations that were not so attractive a few months ago could be very desirable. This market volatility can jeopardize the sale of real estate, and the value of the property itself can fall drastically. Therefore, you never must delay sales and you should try to sell your property as soon as possible.  

In addition to determining the time period in which you plan to sell it, it is necessary to decide how to present the property to potential buyers. If you have enough time and financial resources available and you have good presentation skills, you could sell the property by yourself, without any intermediaries. It is therefore important to get acquainted with the advantages and disadvantages of independent sales on the one side and the advantages and disadvantages of selling through a specialized agency on the other side.  

If you decide yourself for independent sales, you need to be aware that it involves performing a large amount of jobs such as: preparing real estate for presentation, photographing space, detailed information about important facts, textual description of property characteristics, search and selection of advertisers, and adverting and placing ads, taking care about positioning your ads, interacting with interested parties, presenting real estate, worrying about the validity of documentation, making sales documents, transferring customer accounts, and many other jobs that may be more or less complicated.  

In addition, it should be emphasized that during the independent sales you have to count on the daily availability for presenting and viewing real estate. If you are unable to do so, it is desirable to have a person who will do this for you in a satisfactory manner. These jobs generate significant financial and time costs, but the quality of their performance largely determines the direction and speed of real estate sales.  

The aforementioned cost of time and money is certainly one of the items you need to count and plan when deciding on selling real estate. If you have evaluated that these activities can be performed well, then it is prudent enter in the real estate sales process independently. However, if you are limited in time and money or you do not possess good IT and presentation skills, then a wise sale would be entrusted to a verified agency for real estate sales.  

In that case, the licensed agent will routinely do the job of presenting real estate for the market for which you have no resources yourself, and during the upcoming period worry about advertising and treating the interested parties, and ultimately make the documentation for transfer of the ownership. The broker will charge you for your service only after the work is completed, i.e. at the moment you receive some money from the sale of the property.  

Regardless of the approach and strategy that you would decide before making a sale decision (either alone or through an agency), it is important to provide accurate real estate information and validity of your documentation and to determine the sales price. 

 

Ensure proper ownership and technical documentation 

The property is inseparably consisted of its physical part in the space and documentation that legitimates its existence. When selling real estate, the same significance has the physical quality of the property itself and its accompanying documents. Each property is linked to its technical and ownership documentation. Technical (construction) documentation ensures and confirms that the property is built in accordance with the legal regulations, while the ownership documentation is the fundamental proof of ownership of the property.  

In order for the sale process to be successfully completed, i.e. that the property could be purchased and transferred to the buyer, the seller must present and assign to the buyer all necessary documentation. In practice, neglected sellers often engage in advertising and sales attempts with cruel or flawed real estate documents, expecting someone else (perhaps a buyer) to take care of the actions that they themselves had to do or pay in the past. Such sellers' actions are expensive and always remain only for the purpose of selling but without realization. 

Ownership and technical documentation that is not proper can complicate, slow down, and thus increase the sales process. Mostly it happens that sellers who negligently manage the documentation lose a few potential buyers, spend a lot of time and generate quite a lot of costs, until at last they realize that they will not be paid by the buyer who pays the purchase price of the property. For this price the buyer wants to get the property and the accompanying documentation, without exception. No buyer wants to buy a property that does not have the proper ownership documents. Imagine buying a property and you cannot register yourself in the land register as the owner of the property or you find out that you have purchased a property that is not actually legally built. Therefore, in the sales process, it is not only the responsibility of the seller that matters but also the customer's responsibility towards oneself.  

The seller should obtain all the proper documentation, but the buyer should also be familiar with the way the sales process is conducted to make sure that the seller has obtained all the necessary documentation. In this regard, we strongly advise anyone who intends to sell the property: prepare a usage permit, a land registry extract, a copy of the cadastral plan, your real estate listing and, if possible, find the ground floor of your property if it is an apartment or a house. Ensure that identical information is entered in all the above documents and that they are identical to the real estate status in nature. If this is not the case, obtain the documents that give a good explanation of why something is not harmonized and also present yourself openly to the customer (or to the mediator).  

The exclusive way to realize a sale is the neatness of the documents or a valid explanation of the potential inconsistency of the documents that the buyer will accept by his own will. 

 

Determine selling price 

When determining the selling price, it is necessary to follow the defined sales schedule and the sales strategy itself. Once you consulted yourself about the potential market value of the property you will get information on how much your real estate is worth. Although the market may always vary slightly, this is the amount that you should realistically realize in its sales.  

If you want to successfully complete a business, you should not overestimate or underestimate your property. If you specify a price that is considerably lower than its market value, then you will actually lose, and not profit from its sales. Low prices will attract buyers, but will also cause them to doubt. Customers may think that you want to deceive them, to sell the property at such a low price as something is wrong with it (for example, the property documentation is not proper or the property is in poor condition). Also, why you would get less revenue from sales if it is worth more? On the other hand, if you set a sales price significantly higher than the property value itself, you will have troubles with finding the buyer. Why would the buyer pay much higher price if he can get the same money for real estate that is actually worth more?  

When setting up a real estate sales price, you need to take an estimate previously suggested by an expert and estimate the cost of the sales and advertising process (whether you run it alone or with an intermediary). Specifically, in calculating the real estate sales price it is reasonable to calculate its real value (what you can and want to get), the cost of maintenance of the real estate at the time of sale, the advertising costs and the real estate presentation, as well as the negotiation space around the cost of the buyer. To ultimately get the real value of the real estate, the price at which the property will be advertised should contain the cumulative amount of the components mentioned. 

 

Arrange property space 

In addition to the legal process, it is also necessary to arrange the property to be displayed in the best possible light. Often the first impression that buyers obtain on real estate is at the same time crucial. If a buyer does not like real estate at the first visit, he will surely not visit it again and will search for another one that best suits his preferences. As a seller you want to leave such an impression to the buyer that he will be ready to buy your property right after the first visit or return soon to confirm that this property is right for him.  

That is why the property needs to be well cleaned, freed from sources of unpleasant smells and without old furniture. No one wants to buy real estate that needs to be cleaned and disposed of at the very beginning. Customers want as few additional investments as regards repairs, wall paintings, installation of basic installations, etc. They run away from such real estate because they give them headaches.  

It is recommended that you paint your walls in bright colours (best white) because brightness attracts buyers and remedies any possible drawbacks. Maybe the real estate price is higher because it is in an attractive location, but that does not mean that it has good quality. You as a seller can do a lot to raise its quality, which is just about the arranging the property described above. 

 

Ensure uninterrupted access to real estate at any times 

As long as your sales ad is active, you never know when a potential buyer can contact you with the desire to visit the property you sell. As a seller, you must always be ready to show your real estate. Therefore, provide uninterrupted access to real estate at any time.  

Bad impression leave properties where someone is staying. Customers do not like to look at real estate during someone's lunch or family gathering in the living room. It should be free from people and their personal belongings. Rooms that are filled up and equipped may make it difficult for customers to understand what space is actually in front of them. Also, if you are not able to show real estate to potential buyers, leave the property key to the person you trust or use real estate agency services. 

 

Use services of a real estate agency 

Apart from the independent sale of real estate, as well as in the purchase, in the sales process you can also use the services of specialized real estate brokers. Real estate agencies employ professionals who are tracking the real estate market daily and have a large customer base to whom they can offer your real estate.  

A good mediator will present you the way he works and the plan by which he thinks that you can achieve sales and ultimately the cost of his work. If you agree on the conditions of co-operation, it is important to be cooperative in the work and to enable the mediator to work as efficiently as possible. This includes the presentation of the components described above, such as providing insight into real estate information, presenting your wishes and enabling access to your property. Finally, if you go into a business with a broker, investigate his work and enter the job with confidence because your and the mediator's interests are common.