Buying & selling FAQs

With an unhurried conversation, at your kitchen table or ours. You do not need a pre-approval letter to sit down with us — meeting first lets us introduce lenders known for closing on time. Before you tour homes and write offers, a fully underwritten pre-approval will make any offer you make much stronger.

Under current national MLS rules, buyers sign a written Buyer Representation Agreement before touring, stating exactly what their broker is paid — just as sellers sign a listing agreement. Buyers often ask, within their offer, for the seller to cover that fee from the sale proceeds. Every commission is negotiable and none is fixed by law.

No. Some franchise offices add a $495 to $795 "compliance fee" on top of the agreed commission. At Hearth & Key, the fee written on page one of your agreement is our entire brokerage pay, with no surprise charges at the title table.

Ideally six to ten weeks before you want to list, and earlier if you are weighing repairs. That gives time to decide which projects to skip, then declutter, paint, tidy the garden, stage and photograph without a rush.

Online estimates use tax-record square footage and broad ZIP-code averages. They cannot see a kitchen renewed two years ago or hear a busy road. Our in-home Comparative Market Analysis uses only truly comparable closed sales from the past 90 to 180 days and gives you a price range and a net-proceeds sheet.

Usually not. Many of our best sales are lived-in homes where we edit your furniture and add a few accents, fresh linens and warm lamps. The first room-by-room staging visit and the photography are part of our full listing service; if renting furniture for an empty house makes sense, we get direct quotes.

There are four common routes, depending on your equity and what is for sale: a short rent-back after your sale closes, giving you 30 to 45 days to move; a short-term HELOC or bridge loan; a well-written home-sale contingency; or staggered 45- to 60-day escrows. We will talk through which suits you.

All of Cedar Hollow and the wider Maple Valley — Orchard Hill, Maple Grove, Birchwood, Sunnyside, Willow Bend, Ferndale, Cobble Court and more. Our brokers live on these streets and can tell you how each one feels on a school-run morning.

It helps. The sales associate in a model home represents the builder, and builders seldom lower the price for buyers who arrive alone. Bring us, or register us, on your very first model-home visit so the builder recognises your own representation.