What is it worth?
Not the Zestimate. The sales a buyer will actually compare your house to, on your block, this season. You get the number in writing.
Three questions first
What will it cost?
Commission, the seller’s half of the transfer tax, settlement charges, the payoff. Every line on the table before you decide anything.
Is now the time?
Sometimes the answer is wait, rent it out, or fix the one thing first. We will say so, and we will say why.
Your number
What you’d walk away with.
A seller’s net, estimated. Change any figure and watch it move. For the real number on your house, ask an advisor.
Showing it
Buyers decide in ninety seconds. Most of them decide on a phone.
So your house meets them there, in the order they look.
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Photographs
Shot by our in-house photographer, in the light your rooms were made for.
Take a peek -
A short video
Under thirty seconds, vertical, your advisor walking the house. Real rooms, not stills.
Watch one -
A 3D walkthrough
Every room captured, with a floor plan, so a buyer tours it from the couch and shows up already sold.
Walk through one -
A card to the neighbors
Just Listed the week it goes live, Just Sold when it closes. Neighbors know people who want to live near them.
Take a peek -
The open house
Hosted by your advisor, with a sign-in that tells us who came and whether they are working with anyone.
This weekend’s open houses -
Everywhere else
The Greater Lehigh Valley MLS, Zillow, Realtor.com and the rest, the day it lists.
See what we are selling
Which of these your house needs is a conversation, not a package. Your advisor will tell you what will move the price and what will not.
What the neighbors get
The card that goes to every door around yours.
Printed in our office on heavy white stock, mailed the week your house lists and again when it sells. This one went to the streets around 5833 Hill Drive in Upper Macungie.
Opens the card. Click it to flip it over.
Front
Why it looks the way it does.
Every choice on this card was made for the three seconds between the mailbox and the kitchen counter.
- The mailbox gives you three seconds.A full letter-size card lands on top of the stack, face up, with no envelope to open. The photograph does the talking before a word is read.
- Heavy paper is taken seriously.Eighty-pound cover stock, a hundred bright. People hold heavier paper longer and rate what is on it as more important. It does not fold; it stays on the counter.
- Matte white, not gloss.It reads like stationery, not a flyer. The type stays crisp, the green holds, and nothing glares under the kitchen light.
- A face and a direct number.A name a neighbor can check at pals.pa.gov and a cell phone that rings the person in the photograph. Trust is personal before it is institutional.
- Something to show someone.Two codes: the video and the 3D walkthrough. The neighbor is rarely the buyer. The neighbor knows the buyer.
- One look, every time.Hunter Green, Simply White, the same lockup in the same corner. By the third card, the street knows whose it is before reading it.
- An invitation, not a pitch.Open house, both days, snacks. The smallest ask there is, and the one that turns a neighbor into a referral.
Printed in our office and mailed in bundles of a hundred to the postal routes around the house. Advisors pay per card mailed, from the commission at settlement, never up front.
Before the sign goes up
Getting your Nest ready.
Thirty-eight years of construction walk your house before a buyer or an inspector does. Most of what moves the price costs little. Knowing which things to do, and in what order, is the trick.
- Nest Pre-Sale Home ReviewA walk through the house looking for what costs sellers at the negotiating table, before a buyer finds it.
- Getting Your Nest ReadyDecluttering, the small repairs worth making, the ones that are not, and the order to do them in.
- One call for the tradesHVAC, electrical, plumbing, handyman, sewer lateral and backflow inspection, already lined up, quoted per job.
Our Home Services Consultant is not a licensed home inspector and does not replace one. This is the seller’s own walk-through, done by someone who has built and fixed houses for a living.
When an offer comes in
We read every paragraph with you. Then the broker reads it again.
An Agreement of Sale is long. Five things in it decide whether it is a good offer.
- Your net, not the price.Two offers can be $5,000 apart on price and $12,000 apart in what reaches you, once credits, closing-cost help and timing are counted. We show you both numbers.
- The deposit and the financing.How much the buyer puts down, who is lending, and whether that lender has already said yes. A strong offer is one that closes.
- Contingencies and dates.Inspection, appraisal, mortgage, the sale of their own house. Each one is a door the buyer can walk back through. We tell you which doors are open and for how long.
- Inspection replies.When the report comes back, the buyer asks for things. We tell you what is ordinary, what is not, and what a repair credit really costs you.
- The settlement statement, line by line.Before closing, we check the arithmetic ourselves. Errors on settlement sheets are ordinary, and almost always in someone else’s favor.
Every Nest file is reviewed by the Broker of Record before it closes, and the review is recorded on the file. The rest of what we put in writing.
In writing, before you sign
Four things we put in writing.
- The fee, as a figureIn your listing agreement before you sign it. Nothing on the settlement sheet that was not in the agreement.
- A plain-language summaryWith every form, before the meeting where you sign it, not across the table during it.
- A named reviewerThe Broker of Record reads the file before it closes. A name and a date, on the file.
- One advisorFrom the first conversation to the keys, and the question that comes up two years later.
The long version, with the citations, is on our promises.
Your neighborhood
The same house sells for two numbers on two streets.
School district, taxes, the walk to the park, which side of the hill, which streets take on water in August. A buyer prices all of that whether they say so or not. We price your house against the sales they will actually compare it to, in the towns we know. If yours is one we do not, we will tell you and point you to someone who does.
Three things sellers ask first.
Is the commission negotiable?
Yes. Real estate commissions are not set by law, by any multiple listing service, or by any trade association. Any figure on this page, including the default in the calculator, is a starting point for a conversation, and it is written into your listing agreement before you sign.
Do I have to make repairs before I list?
No. Some repairs return more than they cost; most do not. The pre-sale walk-through is about telling the two apart, so you spend on the things a buyer will pay for and disclose the rest honestly.
What if I am not sure I want to sell?
Then do not decide yet. Ask what it is worth, what it would net, and what renting it out would look like instead. You do not have to be ready to do anything to ask.
Start with your number.
Pick an advisor who knows your street and book a time. Or call 610-345-NEST.