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Start Here: A Practical Home Selling Guide That Follows the Real Process
This home selling guide is designed to follow the real process sellers experience—from deciding whether to sell through closing and beyond.
This page is the best place to begin if you’re thinking about selling a home and want a clear, realistic understanding of how the process actually works—especially the parts most “quick tips” guides skip.
This Home Selling Series follows the real order sellers experience. It is designed to help you avoid expensive surprises, reduce stress, and make decisions you’ll still feel good about years later—not just get the house listed quickly.
Who This Guide Is For
This series is especially useful if you:
- Want to understand whether selling actually makes sense before you commit to it
- Need real numbers on net proceeds (not just “what you could list for”)
- Want to reduce inspection/appraisal surprises through smart preparation
- Prefer clear, real-world explanations over hype or “top 10 tips” content
- Are selling in Abilene or the Big Country and want advice grounded in how this market actually behaves
If you’re looking for shortcuts or guarantees, this probably isn’t the right guide. If you want to understand the process well enough to make good decisions under pressure, you’re in the right place.
How to Use This Home Selling Guide
The steps below are written to be read in order. Each step builds on the previous one. Skipping ahead is possible, but most confusion sellers experience comes from jumping to pricing or listing before the foundation is set.
If you’re already under contract, you can jump to the later steps—but I strongly recommend reviewing Step 2 (net proceeds) and Step 5 (pricing discipline) if anything feels unclear.
Why Selling Is Often Harder Than People Expect
Most sellers think the hard part is listing. In reality, the hard part is what happens after you accept an offer: inspections, repairs, appraisal constraints, deadlines, title issues, and funding timing.
That is why this series puts the math and the decision-making first. If you don’t understand your net proceeds, your leverage, and your timelines, selling can turn into a forced march—especially if the market does not support what you need to get.
If You’re Selling and Buying
Many sellers are also buyers—sometimes within days of each other. If you’re planning a sell/buy move, you should also review the Buying Series, especially the early steps on credit, budgeting, and lender timelines.
Start here:
Start Here: A Practical Home Buying Guide That Follows the Real Process
The Complete Home Selling Series
- Step 1: Deciding Whether to Sell Your Home (and Whether It Makes Sense)
- Step 2: Understand Your Net Proceeds From Selling Your Home
- Step 3: Prepare Your Home to Sell (Before You Hire a Realtor)
- Step 4: Choose a Realtor to Sell Your Home (or Go FSBO, Flat-Fee, or Hybrid)
- Step 5: Price Your Home to Sell (Texas CMA, BPO, and Appraisal Reality)
- Step 6: List Your Home for Sale (Launch, Traction, Feedback, and Adjustments)
- Step 7: Weigh Offers on Your Home (Beyond Price)
- Step 8: Under Contract on Your Home (Option Period, Inspections, and Repair Negotiations)
- Step 9: Closing Your Home Sale (From Contract to Funding)
- Step 10: After Closing Your Home Sale (Funding, Proceeds, and the Practical Wrap-Up)
What Makes This Series Different
Most home-selling content focuses on transactions. This series focuses on decisions.
It covers:
- How to decide whether selling improves your position—or quietly weakens it
- Why “equity” and “usable equity” are not the same thing
- How pricing discipline protects leverage and reduces downstream concessions
- Why the first week matters (traction signals, timing, market feedback)
- How to evaluate offers based on closing probability, not just price
- Where real negotiation happens (option period, repairs, appraisal constraints)
- How to reduce late-stage surprises in title, appraisal, and funding
The goal isn’t to rush you to the finish line. The goal is to help you arrive prepared—and finish clean.
About Me — Doug Berry, MBA, REALTOR®
The Bow Tie Agent
I’m a REALTOR® with Better Homes & Gardens Senter, REALTORS® who focuses on helping clients understand the real-world side of homeownership—especially the decisions that affect long-term stability. With an MBA and experience as a lender with USDA Rural Development’s mortgage programs, I approach the process the same way I do with clients: clearly, calmly, and without sales pressure.
If you have questions, need help figuring out where you are in the process, or want a second set of eyes before making a move, feel free to reach out:
