Selling Your Home | John Lee, LPT Realty, West Central and Southwest Florida

What is it worth

What your home is worth.

Online estimates do not know you replaced the roof, that your lot backs up to a preserve, or that the house two streets over was a distress sale. Send me the address and I will pull the real comparable sales and walk you through them. No cost and no obligation, whether or not you list with me.

What's my home worth Call or text

John Lee, licensed real estate agent · LPT Realty, LLC

Teardowns

If the house is coming down.

Some houses are worth less than the lot under them. If that is yours, this is a land sale, and most of what is written below about preparation does not apply.

What changes

The comps are lot sales and what builders paid for dirt on your street. What a renovated house sold for two blocks over does not matter.
Spend nothing on the house. No paint, no roof, no staging. The buyer is pricing the demolition, and anything you fix goes in the dumpster with it.
The buyer is a builder or a family building custom. I keep the lot-value sales by neighborhood on the Builders page, from county records, and I keep track of who is buying where.
Whether to demolish before the sale is a real decision. Sometimes it widens the buyer pool. Sometimes it hands the buyer a cost you could have kept.

What sets the number

Lot size and dimensions, and what a builder can put on it under current setbacks.
The flood zone and the elevation a new house has to be built to. This moved after the 2024 storms and it moves the price.
Tree protection on the site. A protected oak in the wrong spot changes the floor plan, and the offer.
If you have owned the house for a long time, homestead portability and the capital gains exclusion change what you keep. I will walk you through both before we price it. Your CPA gets the final word.

What lots are selling for Call or text

John Lee, licensed real estate agent · LPT Realty, LLC

Pricing

Honest pricing.

I will not tell you a number just to win the listing. An agent who tells you what you want to hear costs you the first thirty days, which is when a listing gets the most attention.

Comparable sales

What has closed near you recently, in similar condition and price range, with the adjustments explained so you can question them.

What the market is doing now

Days on market, how much of the inventory is reducing, and what buyers in your band can afford at today's rates and today's insurance. All three affect the right price.

The cost of overpricing

Overpriced listings go stale and often end up selling for less than they would have if priced right at the start. I will show you what that costs before you decide.

Preparation

What to fix and what to leave alone.

Sellers often spend money they will never get back and skip the thousand dollar fix that is costing them twenty. I have been on the buying side of both.

Usually worth it. Paint, landscaping, deep cleaning, minor plumbing and electrical, and anything an inspector will flag as a health or safety item.
Usually not. Full kitchen remodels, high end finishes chosen to your taste, and additions done just before a sale.
It depends. Roof and HVAC. Sometimes replacing them wins over the buyer's lender and insurance company. Sometimes a credit is smarter. We will run the numbers.

A listing that is prepared and priced right does not need six weeks of price cuts to find a buyer.

The first two weeks on the market bring the most showings. Everything we do beforehand is so we do not waste them.

Title

Your closing date depends on title.

A lot of closings that get delayed get delayed by title. An old lien nobody cleared, an unrecorded easement, a survey that does not match the fence, probate that was never finished, an association that will not produce an estoppel on time.

I own a title company, so I know what those problems look like, I look for them at the start of your file, and I know how long each one takes to clear.

About 82 West Title

You choose your own title company. I have an ownership interest in 82 West Title, I will tell you plainly when I think it is the right fit and why, and using it is never a condition of working with me.

Liens and payoffs ordered early.
Probate and estate sales, where the timeline depends on paperwork most agents have never dealt with.
Survey and boundary conflicts found before a buyer's lender finds them.
Association estoppels requested on day one, because they take time to come back.

Markets

Where I work.

The Gulf coast from St. Petersburg to Marco Island, and inland to Hendry County. These markets do not move together, which works in your favor if you are flexible about where you land.