We will sell your home for the highest price the market will bear while charging you the lowest commission in the business.
Realty Advocates has a 23+ year track record of success in selling homes at "top-of-the-market" prices. Unlike big firms, we don't have sales quotas that might pressure us to rush a transaction or push clients to compromise their goals unnecessarily. Our careful attention to every step of the home sale process starts with our first visit to your home when we learn your goals and priorities and talk with you about strategies for securing the best possible price for your home in the current market conditions. Here's what you can expect with the Realty Advocates full-service program.
VALUATION
Whether it's a funky Bungalow in Temescal, a classic Brown Shingle in Elmwood or a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired gem in Piedmont, your home has a unique story to tell. Getting to know you and your home is one of the great joys of our job. Combining our street-by-street knowledge of our market areas with our experience seeing how a buyer is likely to weigh the pros and cons of your house, we determine what your house may sell for in today's challenging market. We pay particular attention to other homes in your immediate neighborhood that are currently for sale or have sold recently.
Request a home valuation from Realty Advocates.
SMART INVESTMENTS TO GET YOUR HOUSE READY
Sometimes a small investment making a repair or improvement can yield big returns in the marketplace. The trick is knowing which repair or improvement will yield the biggest payback in a higher sales price. Less-experienced real estate agents usually make very generic recommendations (e.g., paint). We know from first-hand experience what works and we recommend projects that we know will be recognized and rewarded by buyers. We give you access to our reliable team of tradespeople, and we supervise the work at no additional charge. Sometimes the work is as simple as replacing an old stove. Sometimes we supervise entire remodeling projects for our clients. Here's a "before and after" look at a kitchen we remodeled for a client. The seller invested $20,000 and earned more than $50,000 in the sale.
STAGING
If a seller plans to put the house on the market after they move out, the question arises: should the house be "staged" (professionally decorated) or shown vacant and unfurnished? In our particular marketplace, most houses are staged and thus buyers are accustomed to seeing furnished houses. However, some houses are appealing enough "naked" that the extra expense of staging (typically $3,500 to $5,000+) may not be necessary. We make our recommendation about staging based on your specific house and your priorities. See examples of homes we've staged and yielded great results.
ATTRACTING STRONG BUYERS
We create a real "buzz" about your home to capture the attention of agents and homebuyers. We develop a customized marketing plan to capitalize on your home's unique features. Our typical plan is soup to nuts.
DISCLOSURES
A large source of potential liability for a seller is in the disclosure process. Our extensive background in residential construction and renovation helps ensure that disclosures from our sellers to potential buyers are as thorough as possible. In addition to providing our sellers with all the required disclosure forms, we go several steps further to make sure that our sellers are protected from liability. These steps include: supplementary disclosure forms, general and specialized professional inspections, and written narrative reports. Thorough disclosure is also our best defense against buyers who might try to renegotiate their purchase terms if their inspections turn up issues that our clients' inspections did not.
NEGOTIATIONS
We are expert negotiators, with skills honed over two decades of brokerage practice. When an offer arrives, we carefully evaluate its pros and cons with the seller and formulate a response designed to produce the very best price and terms possible for our client. Our past clients can tell you in their own words how well we advocated for them and brought them the price and terms they wanted.
MANAGING THE DEALS
After an offer is negotiated and accepted, we work tirelessly and enthusiastically to oversee the myriad details involved in keeping your transaction on track. Unlike large real estate offices that delegate this stage of the sale to a "transaction coordinator," we stay personally involved in this all-important work. Why? A real estate transaction can fall through quite easily — for so many possible reasons. A back-office administrator does not have the skills or attention to anticipate — let alone prevent or resolve — an issue before it goes too far and kills the sale. As we're managing the closing process, we deliver regular updates so you know exactly where the deal stands every step of the way.
COMMISSIONS
Simply put, we charge less than other local Realtors. While many Bay Area real estate firms continue to charge the traditional 6% commission, we charge 3 to 4.5% commission and put thousands of extra dollars in your hands. These extra dollars are especially meaningful when you're simultaneously moving into a new home. Yet the cost savings would be meaningless if we didn't first do a top-notch job providing all the services described above. We can do this and still charge a lower commission because we don't have to pay corporate franchise fees or to keep the lights on in a corporate tower in a faraway city. We keep our overhead low while continuing to invest in advanced marketing and communication technology to make sure you get state-of-the-art service and, most importantly, outstanding results! Learn more about our commission structure.