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Seller's Guide

Everything you need to know about putting your home on the market, accepting an offer, and closing on your home.

A Step-by-Step First Time Seller's Guide

Putting your home on the market can be a stressful process, especially when you don’t know what to expect. Fortunately, with the help of an experienced agent  and this easy to follow  guide, you can smoothly complete the process. Following these steps  will help you prepare so you can get organized and sell your home for  the best price possible.​​​​​​​

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Step 1: Understand Why You're Selling

What do you want to accomplish with the sale of your home? Do you want to make a certain amount of money that you can put toward a larger or nicer home? Do you need to sell it as soon as possible to facilitate a move to a new city or area? Once you understand your needs, you can better craft your offer. For example, if you need to sell quickly, you might want to price your home lower than if your goal is to make a certain profit margin. Make sure you convey these needs to your realtor once you choose one so he or she can adjust your selling price accordingly.

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Step 2: Determine Selling Price

Knowing how to price your home is one of the most important parts of the selling process. When you set a fair price in the beginning, you’ll get the most interest from other real estate agents and prospective buyers. Overpricing your home could lead to reduced interest, and underpricing leads to receiving less than what your home is worth. Working with a real estate agent is the best way to determine the right selling price for your home. An agent with experience can determine what other comparable homes are selling for, evaluate the current market, and may even suggest a home appraisal.

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Step 3: Start Preparations

If you’ve kept your home in showroom condition since you’ve lived in it, you’re in the minority of homeowners. Once you price your home, it’s time to start getting it ready to be shown to potential buyers. This includes getting rid of clutter, depersonalizing the space so that buyers can envision themselves in the space, making any small repairs, and doing a deep clean to make sure your home is in pristine condition.

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Step 4: Develop a Marketing Strategy

I will develop a marketing strategy that is perfect for advertising your home. This involves listing the home and then driving the right people to that listing through social media campaigns, agent-to-agent referrals, traditional media, or SEO advertising. My team creates a marketing campaign that aims to get the most possible traffic to your listing in the first three weeks after becoming a client.

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Step 5: Evaluate Offers

Receiving an offer is an exciting part of the process, but it doesn’t mean the journey is over. We will evaluate each offer and make sure the party making the offer is prequalified or pre-approved by a mortgage lender and that their offer is acceptable to you. If the offer is too low, you can make a counter-offer or offer other ways to bridge the gap, such as covering some or all of the closing costs, making repairs, adjusting the move-in date, or leaving some appliances or fixtures for the new buyer.

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Step 6: Accept an Offer

Once we deem the offer is acceptable, we will review the proposed contract to make sure it’s all in order and includes the necessary components such as deposit amount, down payment, financing, inspection rights and repair allowances, contingencies, settlement date, and a list of fees and who will pay them. When both parties have agreed to the term, a final contract will be prepared by your agent.

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Step 7: Get Ready to Close

What do you want to accomplish with the sale of your home? Do you want to make a certain amount of money that you can put toward a larger or nicer home? Do you need to sell it as soon as possible to facilitate a move to a new city or area? Once you understand your needs, you can better craft your offer. For example, if you need to sell quickly, you might want to price your home lower than if your goal is to make a certain profit margin. Make sure you convey these needs to your realtor once you choose one so he or she can adjust your selling price accordingly.

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Step 8: Close

You’ve reached the last step in the seller’s process. When you close on a home you are selling, you are legally transferring ownership of the property to the new buyer. We will meet with the company closing the transaction to sign the final paperwork and go over any issues that have not yet been taken care of. During this time, you can also make plans with your realtor to handle final details such as canceling utilities, cable, and lawn or trash services, changing the name on accounts that the new owner is retaining and ensuring the new owner has instructions for all appliances that will remain in the home.

Congratulations!

Once you have sold your home, you’re free to take the next step on your journey. Whether this is relocating to a new city, moving into a larger home, or downsizing and enjoying your life as empty-nesters, knowing all your selling responsibilities have been taken care of will help you achieve peace of mind for your new path.

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Testimonials

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Maxwell Carter

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Maxwell Carter

Omar Ruano went above and beyond to help us buy our house. We had a very tight window to submit an offer and needed to move quickly. Omar negotiated on our behalf and somehow made the stars align! We were first-time homebuyers in San Jose CA, new to the process, and Omar really helped us understand each step. He was super responsive, knowledgeable, and was able to work with our schedule. I can honestly s...

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Antonio Marin

Omar Ruano knows the San Jose, CA area & real estate market, and is very savvy. He is very responsive, communicative, and pleasant. His honesty and transparency sets him apart from other realtors. We purchased our San Jose home with Omar and worked with him to sell it a few years later. Both experiences were smooth thanks to Omar's knowledge and great advice. Omar is always a step ahead and has great str...

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Jonathan Chan

If you're looking for an honest, reliable and responsive Realtor that will walk you through the buying or selling process from A to Z, I highly recommend Omar Ruano. By far one of the best Realtors in the SF Bay Area. Omar is incredibly professional, he is patient, knowledgeable and has a keen eye for staging homes. He helped us find our first condo in San Jose, CA, a diamond in the rough, that we called...

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Brian Naughton

Omar Ruano recently helped us purchase our first house. He's extremely knowledgeable of the Bay Area market and was able to answer our many questions about the process and what to expect. And being first-time homebuyers we had LOTS of questions. But Omar was very patient with us and in the end we were able to get the right Silicon Valley house for us. Omar made us feel comfortable at every step of the wa...

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Brian Davis and Roger Ruina

We were extremely lucky to meet Omar and have him guide and represent us in the sell of our home. From beginning to end he was professional, honest, dependable, and kind. He not only made recommendations for vendors to use for a few home improvements that were necessary, but also instrumental in keeping the vendors on our established timeline. Omar's assessment of our home was right on track and he produ...

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Mustali & Rashida

Both of us really enjoyed working with Omar and with his help we were able to purchase our first home. He made this complicated process smooth and problem free for us and we would strongly recommend him to anyone who is looking for a home! The first time we met Omar he spent time with us going through the entire home buying process and the various steps involved. Being first time home buyers this was imp...

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Roy Family

We've a very high bar for quality of service. We hold ourselves and others who provide us service to that high standard. We have nothing but praise for the services Omar has provided pre and post close of escrow of the house we purchased. 5 Star Rating we give for his service. We believe Omar was instrumental in setting the correct offer price of the house we purchased. He is wise and has the deep unders...

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Cj

The decision to sale my home was by far the hardest decision I had to make. It was the first home I ever purchased and lived for several years.I loved my neighborhood and my home was my pride and joy. I knew the Realtor® I chose to sale my home had to have two qualities above all others, he/she had to LISTEN and effectively negotiate. After multiple interviews with prospective Realtors®, I had been refer...

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Thomas M.

As first time home buyers coming off a Real Estate Agent that we felt didn't fit our needs, my fiancée and I were a bit hesitant starting over with a new agent for our home-buying experience. I had found Omar through my credit union's Homebuyers Advantage program and we decided to take a chance on him in the hopes that he would not only assist us in our endeavor to own a home but also to guide and advise...

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Dang T.

Very patient, courteous, honest professional. I was referred to Omar thru another source along my journey for a sanctuary to call my own and when I met Omar I felt the connection right away, its just the way he is and how he presented himself to me that made me feel at ease and trusting. I am not one that is easy to gain trust from with my years of services in the military but he did just that and I was ...

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Daniel N.

My wife and I are so grateful to Omar for helping us to close on our first home purchase. During this whole process, Omar has been incredibly patient in handling our constant questions, diligent in checking in with us and letting us know of new leads, flexible in scheduling home viewings and dealing with our particular search criteria, and overall a huge help in all aspects throughout our home search. He...

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Allan S.

When my wife and I were ready to sell our house, we knew exactly who we wanted as our Realtor®. That Realtor® is Omar Ruano. Once we requested his services, he had everything planned out from beginning to end. Since we were on a contingency deadline to make a purchase on our new house, it was very critical for us to sell the house within 2 weeks. With Omar's drive and willingness to fulfill our deadline ...

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Shubhra & Rajan C.

We came across Omar through a reference we got for him. Omar was very through in understanding our requirements. We were very satisfied with his approach and signed him up as our agent. He was ready to answer any questions we had, and as first time home buyers , we had a quite a lot of them. Omar helped us at open houses , and made sure we had all the information about the houses. He was very diligent in...

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Eileen R.

Omar was a God-send, and a source of calm and hope during a very stressful time in my life. I was one of the many many unfortunate homeowners who found herself "under water" and struggling to hold on to the home I had invested so much in over a ten year period. But when it finally became clear that the best way to get on with my life was to sell, a good friend recommended Omar and his knowledge of the sh...

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Douglas B.

With the selling of our prior home and the purchasing of our new home, Omar showed great salesmanship, professionalism, and most importantly, patience. With his background and patience, Omar was able to sell our prior home and find us the home of our Dreams that we were looking for. Omar placed a lot of time and effort and provided the salesmanship we were looking for. From our home preparation, the Open...

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Mr. & Mrs. D. Stone

It has been our pleasure to be served by Omar as our selling agent. Our home was listed as a short sale. To have closed this property under these conditions during a down-turned market with an unusually large amount of properties similar or worse financial conditions competing for scarce buyers is telling of his skills and tenacity. Omar was very professional in his conduct, displaying a wealth of knowle...

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Jim M.

My wife (Peri) and I met Omar and interviewed him as a candidate to represent us in purchasing our home. The night we met Omar we knew we found our man. He was polite, knowledgeable, courteous and professional. We had a long list of wants and needs. We had a limited budget were first time buyers and went with an FHA loan . Omar even thought we were asking for a lot. literally. He not only found us a home...

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Lisa C.

Omar is a wonderful Real Estate Agent recommended to us by our credit union as part of the HomeAdvantage program. He is very experienced with the South Bay and very attentive to our home search during our intensive month-long search. He provided a good perspective on the market and encouragement, especially in times when we were about to throw in the towel. We very much appreciated his proactive follow-u...

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Mariana & Eduardo

Omar helped us throughout the process of search, tour, inspect of disclosures, creation of a compelling offer, and ultimately, the purchase of the house in the neighborhood that we were looking for. Furthermore, he provided valuable assistance on the communications with other agents, sellers, escrow companies, and lenders. Another positive point was the usage of electronic signing during the process, whi...

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Alfred & Mona H.

Dear Omar, My wife, kids, and I would like to thank you for the fantastic efforts you put in to help us purchase our home. In this difficult market, we understand it was not easy to both sell a house in Mountain View and purchase another in Fremont with contingency conditions. However, you persevered and worked hard on our behalf to make this difficult process and transition feasible. On behalf of my ent...

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