Are you considering selling your home? When it’s time to list your home for sale, it’s a good idea to understand what the home selling timeline looks like.

Maybe you’ve never sold a house before and you’re curious. Let’s look at what you should expect when you’re ready to list your home for sale.

A Good Home Selling Timeline and Guide

Three Months Before Selling

About 3 months before you list your home for sale is a good time to make your final decision. You’ll want to look over your budget and financial situation to help you make the right decision.

It’s also a good time to get all the necessary information about your mortgage. Make sure to consider all the expenses that come with selling your home including:

• Paying real estate commissions
• Taxes
• Closing costs
• Other fees

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. If you need to relocate for work or another reason, you might decide to sell much closer to the time you list your home.

Two Months Before Selling

About two months before you’re ready to list your home for sale, you should hire a good real estate agent. You want to have someone on board to help you prepare your home to be listed for sale. They can also help with the rest of your home selling timeline and guide you through the process.

Take time to interview a few agents before making your final decision. Find out about their experience in your neighborhood and with homes similar to yours. Don’t just choose the agent telling you they can sell your home for the highest price.

Create a Selling Strategy

After you hire an agent, it’s a good time to sit down and create a selling strategy. This strategy should include anything you need to do to the home before listing it, such as painting, flooring, etc. You also want to choose a target date for listing your home.

Getting a home inspection done is a good idea at this point, too. A home inspection will show you what the buyer will see when they order a home inspection. Any repairs needing to be fixed can be handled before listing your home for sale and there won’t be any surprised.

Handle Necessary Repairs

Once you have the pre-sale inspection done and you’ve strategized with your agent, it’s time to get to work. Get any repairs fixed and make any changes to the home now.

One Month Before Selling

At this point in the home selling timeline there are several more things to tackle before you pull the trigger and list your home for sale. About one month out, you want to start handling things, such as:

• Decluttering your home
• Having it professionally cleaned
• Moving unnecessary items to a storage unit
• Depersonalizing your home

You might want to schedule a professional cleaner to clean your home a few days before it’s listed, as well. Having a professional cleaning service come every week is a good idea while your home is listed if you plan to live in it until it’s sold.

About a month away from your target list date is a good time to decide on a listing price, too. Your agent will do all the hard work on this and provide their recommendation through a comparative market analysis.

Two Weeks Before Selling

About two weeks from the listing date, you want to hire a professional stager to make sure your home looks amazing. Home staging is like giving your home a complete makeover and putting the best dress on it for the ball. You are getting close to the end of the home selling timeline and this is a very important step in the process.

One Week Before Selling

Once the home has been professionally staged, it’s time to have the listing pictures taken. When you work with List With Elizabeth, you won’t have anything to worry about. We take professional listing pictures for all our listings and this is a very important part of the home selling timeline and listing process.

After Listing Your Home For Sale

Once your home is on the market, it will be time to review offers and go through the actual selling process. Your agent will handle the showings and prospective buyers. When an offer comes in, they will consult with you and prepare you for the rest of the home selling timeline.

After Accepting an Offer

Once you’ve accepted an offer, you will go through the process before closing. This includes:

• Home inspections
• Repairs/negotiations
• Fulfilling other contingencies
• Settling on closing and move-in dates
• Final Walkthrough

The process may vary a little bit depending on the deal. Once you hand over the keys, all your possessions should be out of the home.

Selling your home is a pretty big deal. You don’t want to go through the process alone. Hiring the right real estate agent will give you someone to guide you through the process and help you set up your home selling timeline.

It doesn’t always take three months to get a home listed for sale. Some home selling timelines may be much faster or might take even longer. Every situation is different. Speak with your agent to find out what needs to be done and when the best time to list your home for sale is based on the current market.