Selling your Santa Fe home in 8 Steps

Step 1: Choose the Right Santa Fe REALTOR®

Selling your home in Santa Fe can be made more straightforward when you have someone looking out for your best interests, and that is accurately representing you. This is why picking the right Santa Fe agent listing agent is so important!  A listing Agent work’s to not only market your home effectively, but they will also help you navigate the current Santa FE Real Estate market to ensure you get the best deal possible for your home. A REALTOR® is a licensed real estate agent that is an active member of the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

We recommend asking friends and family members for recommendations, reading reviews, and ensuring you pick the right agent for you. Depending on the Santa Fe  Real Estate market, your house should sell in 1-2 weeks if priced correctly, and you’ll want to make sure the REALTOR®  you pick is a great match. Remember to ask essential questions, like, what is your experience in this market, what are your marketing strategies, and how the commission on the sale is paid.

Step 2: What is Your Santa Fe Home Worth?

To ensure your home is priced accurately, your listing agent will perform a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA), where they look at current market trends and what other homes like yours have been selling for in your area. They then use those metrics to identify where your home fits amongst comparable properties in the area to give you an idea of what buyers are currently willing to pay.

Selling your home can be an emotional process. One tip we offer our clients is this; buyers do not have any emotional connection with the house, and the market will dictate the sales price of the home.

Step 3: Get Your Santa Fe Home Market Ready!

To get your home ready to sell, you’ll want to stage your home to sell by cleaning and decluttering, as well as doing any necessary repairs. Remember, first impressions are everything, and making the best one is essential for selling your home! Try to move things around to make the spaces seem much more prominent and let in as much natural light as possible. 

If you want to enlist the help of a professional, your REALTOR® should be able to point you in the direction of a home stager here in Santa Fe to help you put your best foot forward. 

Step 4: List Your Santa Fe Home

Once your home is ready to sell, your REALTOR® will begin marketing to get your home in front of as many buyers as possible. This should include taking photos and/or videos and listing your property on MLS to populate on all the major real estate sites. They will write a captivating description of your home to highlight its best features and entice buyers. They may also spend some money advertising your property across social media and even in paper mail. 

To get the best idea of how your home is being marketed, just ask your REALTOR® what they are doing to get your house out there! 

Step 5: Host Showings & Open Houses

Buying a house can be such a fun process. Showings and open houses are still an essential part of the buying process. This gives buyers a chance to take a look around the home, envision themselves living in the space, and getting a feel for the neighborhood. So, as a seller, you need to be willing and able to make these in-person showings happen. If you’re hoping for a quick sale, you’ll also want to be as flexible as possible to get people into your home sooner. 

Step 6: Entertain All Offers

Your Santa Fe REALTOR®  should have marketed your price right, and if so, offers will come in. However, more often than not, the offers may not be your dream offer- remember, everybody wants a deal. Buyers may be offering below your asking price or requesting less-than-ideal conditions. That being said, you should never just throw out an offer without considering it first. 

Take into account all the details of all offers and consider how much you are willing to compromise on selling your home. You are never limited to just accepting or rejecting an offer—feel free to offer a counteroffer and see what the buyer says! Of course, a good, experienced real estate agent will help guide you through this process to ensure you get the best deal possible. 

Step 7: Accepting an offer on your Santa Fe Home and Starting the Escrow Process

Once you’ve accepted an offer, your Santa Fe REALTOR® will be working hard to get the deal done by the agreed-upon closing date. Your real estate agent will be corresponding on your behalf with the Buyers agent, the lender, the escrow officer at the title company, and arranging the buyer’s appraisal and home inspections. During this time, keep the line of communication open between you and your agent, and still allow for the flexibility of anything the buyer might need. It may feel like you are just counting down the days until your move, but trust me when I say your real estate agent is still working hard to make sure everything comes together, especially if there are still contingencies in place.

Step 8: Closing the Sale of you Santa Fe Home

When all is said and done, and your closing date arrives, the time will have come to sign the final paperwork and officially hand over the keys to the new owner. Remember to contact the utility companies and let them know you’ve sold the house. Your real estate agent will guide you through the process of meeting with the escrow officer, signing your closing paperwork, and turning over your keys.

Once both parties, the Seller and the Buyer, have submitted and signed all of the necessary paperwork, funded the sale, and recording the sale; congratulations, you’ve officially sold your home!

Please call Jerome or me if you have any questions or need help selling your home. We would love to help you!

Chantell Leyba

• Chantell Leyba is an associate Broker with Leyba Real Estate and owner of Red or Green Properties LLC in Santa Fe, NM