How To Sell Your Southern California Home Safely [Owners Checklist]

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How To Sell Your Southern California Home Safely [Owners Checklist]

Selling a home is a very exciting prospect, so you can’t be faulted if you forget to think of the necessary safety precautions initially. However, as you want to get the best price possible and make sure that the sale goes smoothly and safely, you can’t let yourself get caught up in the chaos of the sale without having a plan in place.

Right now, the Southern California real estate market is in good health, but that doesn’t mean that you should throw caution to the wind and not cross your Ts and dot your Is. The first step is simple – getting professional help. SleeveUp Homes can guide you through the entire process and help you get the best deal possible. Here are some other things you should consider to sell your Southern California home safely.

Utilize the Internet

If you don’t advertise over the internet you are discarding a huge source of potential buyers. Proper digital marketing is a key factor if you want to sell your Southern California home safely. Online marketing was a huge boon to serious home sellers even before the pandemic, but now it is a must. More and more buyers are transitioning to searching for homes online as social distancing rules make it a risk to interacting in person.

Take Good Photos and Videos

How To Sell Your Southern California Home Safely [Owners Checklist]

You can’t disregard the power of good photos and videos of your home can have in attracting potential buyers. You can display all of the benefits of buying your home before they even set foot in your house. If you have a knack for photography you can do it yourself, but if you don’t, consider hiring a professional to help you out. There’s a world of difference between good and bad photography – there is a reason why people get paid to do it even though we all have access to a camera.

Set Up an Online Open House

Organizing an open house is a staple of home-selling and modern technology allows you to do it all online. You have many options available – from Facebook Live to Zoom. An online open house is not invasive to your physical space so you don’t have to take other precautions to protect your health and safety.

However, while there are instances of people buying houses only after viewing them online, most serious buyers will still want to check out your home in person. An online open house helps you attract potential buyers, but it also weeds out those who weren’t going to buy it anyway. Consequently, you will have fewer people coming into your home in person, but they will all be truly interested in buying your home.

Enforce Health and Safety Measures

How To Sell Your Southern California Home Safely [Owners Checklist]- Man disinfecting hands

Inevitability, serious buyers will come to your home in person. Your primary concern is to keep everyone safe during their visits. Whether it’s during an open house or an individual visit, you should set up strict rules and enforce them. The rules don’t need to be anything out of the ordinary – think of how people should act when they visit a store and go for that.

So, everyone should have 6 feet of personal space, wear masks and gloves, avoid touching anything they don’t have to and sanitize their hands. Ask anyone with visible signs of COVID not to enter your home and visit only once they are healthy. Besides your bathrooms for washing hands, you can set up two or three sanitation stations with hand sanitisers throughout the house for extra safety. After a group has left, you should do your best to disinfect your home before you invite another one in.

Take note that safety precautions are not optional when you are selling a home. By law, you must display a flyer or sign that lays out the safety precautions everyone needs to follow when entering your home. 

If you have any special precautions in mind, then you should make your sign, but otherwise, you can simply copy the standard signs you can find in any commercial building you visit or find online.

Legal Precautions To Ensure a Safe Sale

How To Sell Your Southern California Home Safely [Owners Checklist] sign legal papers

To sell your South California home safely, it’s not only health you should worry about. As selling a home was a somewhat intricate process before the pandemic hit, so too is it now. Your real estate agent is there to guide you in the process and take the brunt of the legal dealings, but there are still things you should personally take care of even if you have an agent.

First and foremost, the contract should always be in writing. While this may seem obvious, it still needs to be stressed. Verbal agreements can be enforceable, but only if both parties agree to the enforcement when there is an issue. Otherwise, the contract can either be voided or you could face a prolonged legal battle. Simply put – always have your contracts in writing.

The second step is disclosing, in writing, anything material relating to the property that might affect the buyer. If you don’t, you could face steep penalties and the buyer may terminate the deal when you get close to the sale.  

You need to list any problems or irregularities, make the buyer aware of what additional fees they may have to pay, inform the buyer of any neighbourhood issues and HOE restrictions (if a HOE exists), and many other small things. If you’re not sure what you should list, go the safe route and put down anything you can think of that may affect the buyer’s desire to purchase the property.

Taking the Rights Steps to Sell Your Southern California Home Safely

In summary, you should minimize in-person contact, follow health rules and guidelines, and ensure any legal issues are taken care of beforehand to sell your Southern California home safely. In theory, you can do it all by yourself, but it’s always best to get some professional assistance to make sure that everything goes smoothly.

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