Surround yourself with awesome people! I’m excited about sharing our first video featuring a guest expert to help navigate you through the process. This week’s video features Rachel Thompson, a New Mexico Realtor (to visit Rachel’s website – click here) who shares 5 tips to selling your home—whether you are going through a divorce or not! Enjoy! —Rocky Lara
When you are going through a divorce in New Mexico, one of the things that you have to do is divide the things and the bills that you and your spouse have acquired during the marriage.
The division has to be fair to both of you and in a way that is going to allow you both to move on with your life after the divorce is over. Usually the largest asset that people have to divide is the house.
- Decide if one of you is going to keep the house or if the house is going to be sold.
In New Mexico, one of you can keep the house but you have to figure out how much equity is in the house and you will likely have to buy out your spouse’s portion of the house. Or you and your spouse could decide to sell the house and split whatever proceeds come from the house.
So number one, decide if someone is going to keep the house or if it’s going to be sold to a third party.
- Figure out how much the house is worth. There are three ways to figure out the value of the house:
- An agreed value by the two of you;
- A Market Analysis done by a realtor; or
- An appraisal done by a Certified Appraiser.
If you and your spouse can agree on the value of the house, then use that value to determine the equity. If you cannot agree or are just unsure, you can ask a realtor to do a Market Analysis.
There is usually no cost for a Market Analysis and a realtor will use information about your house to compare it to other houses that have been sold. An appraisal will be more detailed than a Market Analysis and should be done by a Certified Appraiser.
The Certified Appraiser will charge for the appraisal but will produce a written report with the evaluation of value.
- Make any upgrades to the house to improve the selling price.
In the event that you and your spouse decide you are going to sell the house, you might talk to a realtor about what kinds of upgrades could be made to the house to make sure that you get the best offer for what you have available.
For instance, it might be time to get rid of the avocado green appliances in the kitchen and upgrade those to stainless steel.
- De-personalize the house.
An easier, cheaper upgrade is to paint the hot pink wall in the bedroom to a more neutral color so that people who are interested in purchasing the house can imagine their lives in that house.
So, de-personalize by painting over your favorite colors with more neutral palettes. Remove photos and things like that from the walls and make the house a blank slate for people to be able to picture themselves living in the house.
- Have a plan.
If you are moving out of the house, where are you going to go? Are you going to rent for a while or are you going to purchase another house? Because if you decide you are going to purchase another house, you could work with the same realtor to find that new house and coordinate the closings so that the proceeds from the sale of one house can be applied to the down payment for the purchase of the new house.
So, there it is, folks. If you are selling your house or if your spouse is buying out your part of the house, or if you’re the spouse buying out a portion of the house, these are five quick tips for you to think about to get the most value for what you have to offer.
