Seller’s ‘Short-Order’ Menu

Real Estate, a la Carte ™

Real Estate a la Carte! ™

“Free Appetizers”

Price your home to sell faster and for more money
after receiving our competitive market analysis.

Get the scoop on neighborhood sales
with periodic emailed reports.

“Meat and Potatoes”

List and Close the Sale of Your Property

A flat fee of $3,900 to the listing agency
for seller’s representation*

Compensation to buyer’s agency is discussed below**

Sell your home faster and for more money in your pocket
with Real Estate a la Carte ™

Pricing and Listing

ü Work with you to properly price and set up your home for maximum impact as soon as it hits the marketplace. We will show you accurate sales figures from closed properties, so you can make a marketing decision based on facts, not neighborhood gossip.  We also stress a review of "active" listings--this is a competitive
market.

ü Measure or otherwise determine square footage, measure room sizes, obtain tax and homeowner association information, and other details necessary for the posting of information to the public

ü Discuss with you physical things to do to enhance your home’s first impression

ü Make sure your Tennessee Property Disclosure Act form is properly executed and posted in realtracs.

ü Save you money on seller’s closing costs and title work, if we are involved in the sale financing, by seeking to obtain a 30% re-issue discount.

ü Give your home a competitive advantage by offering prospective buyers the additional incentive of our Real Estate a la Carte! Advantage Club Buyer's Rebate or Closing Paid.  This is the Secret Sauce of listing with Real Estate, a la Carte!

Marketing Your Home for Sale

ü Develop a “unique selling proposition” for your home to articulate the “buyer’s rationale” for purchasing your home instead of one of hundreds of others on the market

ü List your home or land in the Multiple Listing Service for the greatest possible exposure to the market. Your home’s information is available to Realtors through realtracs.net as well as the public nationwide through Realtor.com, move.com, realtracs.com, and many other other web resources.

ü Syndicate the listing of your home on major search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, and real estate web sites, such as point2agent.com and Zillow.com, among more than 20 other prominent search engines and real estate-related web sites.

ü Take photos and post them to your home's own page on our web site and to such MLS-connected sites as realtracs.net, Realtor.com, move.com, and realtracs.com as well as many other real estate sites on the web.

ü Post a for sale sign in your yard to get calls from those folks who are already looking in your neighborhood

ü Use a 24/7 toll-free number with recorded information on your property to capture more buyers and sell your home faster and for more money

ü Prepare a brochure of facts and photos

ü Prepare a Homebuyer Financing Guide to demonstrate financing options to potential purchasers.

ü Give your home a competitive advantage by offering prospective buyers the additional incentive of our Real Estate a la Carte! Advantage Club Rebate or Closing Paid

Demonstrating Your Home

ü Coordinate and schedule showings of your home. We use a key box, so that you will not have to be home and so that we won’t miss showing the home to a Realtor’s customer, in case you will not be home. In fact, it is usually best for the owner to be away when the property is shown, so the prospects can speak openly among themselves and with their Realtor, spend more time in your home, and focus more seriously on your home.

ü Obtain feedback from Realtors and prospects who have seen your home, to determine if there is something we need to change to sell the home faster and for the most money.

The Contract

ü Negotiate offers on your behalf, including price, terms, possession, contingencies, concessions, repairs and inspection clauses.

ü Help you dodge legal problems by using various disclosures we will attach to any contract you sign, such as environmental disclaimers and Tennessee Property Disclosure.

ü Avoid “counterpart contracts” whenever possible and memorialize the intentions of both parties clearly in one final signed and dated agreement.  Through our "Transaction Desk" system, we can edit the contract and send it to the parties via email.

ü Calculate an estimate of your net proceeds.

Post-Contract to Closing

ü This is when the real work begins.  It's far from over once you get a contract.  This is the diciest part of the deal, and our experience will help prevent it from falling through.  We coordinate the sale through post-contract steps, such as home inspections, appraisal, termite inspection, buyer’s financing, title work, random glitches and encounters with Murphy’s Law, etc. We arrange title work, and will seek to obtain you a discount on the title work, if we are also arranging the financing. We coordinate scheduling of closing, review the settlement sheet of figures and charges prior to closing, and personally attend your sale closing.

ü Post on our web site’s Transaction Tracker™ a running status of the sale and progress toward closing, such as receipt of appraisal, and post as .pdf files the pertinent documents, such as contract and disclaimers, memos, invoices, etc. Sign up as a Real Estate a la Carte! Advantage Club member and sign in with user name and password when you access the documents

Our Advocacy and Integrity

We are your advocates and will represent you to the best of our personal and professional abilities. Your interests come first. We will deal fairly and honestly with you and any others we encounter in the course of serving you. We will strive to provide you information that is the most current and accurate and to stay on the leading edge of trends, marketing, legal issues, and education in the industry. We will remain open to your feedback, comments, questions, and observations at all times. We want you to become our biggest fan.

“Side Items”

Appraisal

$400

Arrange for an appraisal prior to listing the home.  Often this can be a good marketing technique as Realtors will love showing your home with the time-consuming and unknown element of the appraisal out of the way. The appraisal can also ease a buyer’s uncertainty over your price and make them more ready to write a purchase contract.

Home Inspection

Usually $250-$500, depending on size of home and sometimes other things. A “pre-emptive” home inspection may be a good idea. This lets you know how others will at some point view your property and alerts you to items which a buyer may ask you to change. Let’s face it: A home inspection is often viewed as intrusive and offensive by the homeowner. With your own inspection, we can get that emotional part out of the way on “our time” before dealing with any awkwardness or problems after a contract has been signed and there are a buyer and another Realtor involved. From a marketing point of view, if we have a home inspection available to prospects, it will make them feel more at ease about going ahead with a purchase offer, even if they later employ their own inspector.

Multimedia Package

$1,200

Feature your home on Home Center Network TV real estate show.
4-week advertising campaign in local newspapers and Homes Magazine.
Post an expanded video tour of your home on the internet.
Print postings and TV listings run for four weeks
Video tour is for the duration of your listing

Video Tour

$300

Post an expanded video tour of your home on the Real Estate a la Carte! web site
An expanded video tour includes exterior and interior of the home, streetscapes,
and may include subdivision entrance, neighborhood and area, amenties and schools

Included in multimedia package


TV Listing

$300

Feature your home on Comcast’s Home Center Network TV listing show
Your home will be shown twice a day, every day, for four weeks

Included in multimedia package

Staging

$500

Actually, cost will vary with services used. This is the latest wrinkle in added services to a home seller, and several individuals and companies have popped up offering to view your home objectively and help arrange and “set up” the home to give its best possible first impression, best sense of space, and sense of neatness and organization.

Open House

No cost to $300

You may or may not wish to have an open house. An open house does not necessarily or usually lead to your eventual buyer. With your agreement, however, for various reasons we may elect to have an open house. An open house is usually best done when the home is first listed. There is no charge for that initial open house. If we have not scheduled a subsequent open house but you are convinced an open house would help effect a sale, we will advertise and conduct an open house for $300, payable in advance of the ad placement.

Show Your Home to Our Customers/
Another Agent’s Customer

No cost to show your home to one of our customers, of course. If we effect a sale, we will earn the selling agent’s portion of the sales compensation in addition to the $3,900 listing fee. Commissions are negotiable, but at this time we recommend that you offer to pay a competitive fee of 3% to the selling agent to make sure everyone is fully motivated to show and sell your home. If you require us to meet another agent with his or her customers to show your home, the cost will be $50 per showing, and we will bill you periodically during the course of the listing. Ideally, another agent can use our key box to show the home in the event you are not home or able to meet the agent yourself. A fee comes into play only if you require that we not use a key box and if you are unable to meet agents or simply do not wish to.

Warranty

$350-$450. A warranty provided by the seller gives the buyer some confidence in going ahead with the purchase, and to some extent takes the seller “off the hook” if systems fail later.

Facilitator

$1,500

Negotiate the contract for sale and hand-hold everyone through all the steps and to a successful closing on time.

Do you already have a buyer? Perhaps a co-worker or family member or someone you encountered through your own efforts? You may not relish haggling over money or business, but we can do that, along with preparing the contract, arranging financing, and coordinating the sale through all the inspections and requirements that will lead to a smooth closing. Retain us as Facilitator, and avoid knotted stomach, hurt feelings, mass confusion, sticky lawsuits, and botched closings. We arrange title work and schedule closing, review the settlement sheet of figures and charges prior to closing, and personally attend your closing. We earn $500 upon completion of the contract and the balance at closing. To further enhance the level of communication and coordination, which lowers everyone’s anxiety, have us arrange the financing.

Consultation

Free to $150 per hour

Even if we are not involved in a contract for service for you as a client, such as listing or purchasing, we will happily answer questions and discuss real estate issues with you at no cost. If the nature of your need is more involved, and requires something more on our part—such as research, letter-writing, preparation of a report or contract, phone calls, dealing with government officials, etc.—we will bill for our time and expenses, or for an agreed-upon total.  Actually, we can do any work you wish by the hour, even listing your property for sale or representing a buyer, based on time plus expenses.

*$3,900 flat fee applies to properties up to $999,999

For properties $1 million and above, add $1,000 per million

(example, $1 million to $2 million is $4,900; $2 million to $3 million is $5,900, etc.)

Of the $3,900 flat fee to represent the seller, $500 is earned at the time of the listing

and is to be paid at that time. The balance is due at the time of closing.

**We may recommend that you offer 3% or a competitive market fee to the selling agent to make sure no one feels under-motivated to show and sell your home. For example, on the sale of a $500,000 home, the commission paid by the seller may be 3% of the sales price, or $15,000, to the selling agency (representing the buyer) and our $3,900 listing fee to Real Estate a la Carte!, for a total of $17,500. If Real Estate a la Carte! brings the buyer, the selling commission will be 3% plus the $3,900 listing fee to Real Estate a la Carte!. Commissions are negotiable, and 3% to the selling agent may or may not be what we ultimately determine, with your agreement. Just as the listing side of the equation has begun to change, due to market forces and technology, the selling side will likely follow suit in some fashion and at some time. As various circumstances and conditions may determine, we reserve the right to choose to list your property for more or less than the posted amounts or to not list your property at all.  Commissions are not set by law or any regulatory agency or trade association but are negotiable for an amount and structure agreed upon between seller and agent.

Last Word for Sellers

Buyers get most of the attention and seem to get most of the protection as consumers. Of course, buyers need help and financing to be able to let the sellers reach their goals.

As much as there is conversation about buying a home being an emotional process, we think it is harder on a seller. As a seller you have sentimental attachment to your home; it’s just bricks and wood, but it can’t be helped.

As a seller, you have only one shot—that is to say that you have one home to sell and no choice. As a buyer, you have plenty of choices; if you miss out on a nice property; another one will come along. As a seller, you play with the hand you are dealt, and you must sell what you have where you are and when you need to move.

As a seller there are places in the process where you might feel someone is trying to push you around. The buyer may be feeling the same way at some point (so may the Realtors!). We have been in your (and everyone’s) shoes and know the ropes. You may be surprised at some of our advice. Our job is to recognize the seller’s special needs, to protect your interests at every turn, and to make your sale as quick, smooth, and profitable as possible.

Contact Us Now to Ask Questions or Get Started:

Phone: 615-661-5332

Mobile: 615-579-8658

Info@REALCarte.com