Listing with a licensed REALTOR®
Listing your house on the open market.
The traditional route, done properly: priced off real comparable sales, prepared where preparation pays, marketed to the whole buyer pool, and negotiated by somebody who is not also the buyer.
What actually happens
From first walk-through to the act of sale
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A walk-through and a comparative market analysis
He walks the house, then pulls closed comparable sales and adjusts them for what is different about yours. You get a price range with the reasoning attached, not a number with confidence attached.
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A prep plan with a budget
Which repairs pay for themselves in this market and which never do. The list is usually shorter and cheaper than sellers expect, and the expensive items are usually the ones that decide whether the house can be financed at all.
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Photography, the listing, and the MLS
Good photographs are not a luxury, they are the first showing. The listing goes into the REALTOR® Association of Acadiana MLS and from there to the portals buyers actually use.
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Showings, offers, and the negotiation
Price is one term. Closing date, contingencies, what the buyer is asking you to pay toward their costs, and how the inspection response is handled are the rest, and they routinely move more money than the headline number does.
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Inspection, appraisal, and closing
The two places deals die. Then title work, and an act of sale passed before a notary with two witnesses, recorded in the parish.
The part you should read
Listing is not always the right answer
A listing agent whose only product is a listing has one recommendation available. That is a structural problem with the advice, not a character problem with the agent.
If your house needs work you cannot fund, listing it as-is means paying commission and concessions and several months of holding costs to reach the same small pool of buyers a direct sale would have reached anyway. In that specific case the arithmetic favors selling directly, sometimes by a wide margin, and you should hear that before you sign a six-month listing agreement rather than four months into one.
The comparison is worked out with numbers on one page.
Two useful next steps
Find out the number, or find out the list
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What is my home worth
A real comparative market analysis from a licensed REALTOR®, against a Zestimate-style automated guess. Free, and no obligation to list.
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Prep your home to sell
Which repairs pay for themselves before listing in the Lafayette market, and which ones never do.
Seller questions
Asked before every listing
What does it cost to list with an agent?
Commission is negotiated between you and the brokerage, and since 2024 any compensation offered to a buyer's agent is negotiated separately and stated in the offer rather than advertised in the MLS. Nothing about it is set by law or by any association. Ask for the number in writing before you sign a listing agreement, and expect a straight answer to that question from anybody worth hiring.
How is the price actually set?
From closed sales of genuinely comparable properties, adjusted for what is different about yours. Comparable means similar size, age, condition and location, and sold recently enough to reflect the same market. It does not mean whatever the neighbors listed at. An automated estimate cannot see that your roof is new and theirs was not, which is the entire reason a human analysis is worth having.
How long will it take?
Marketing time depends on price, condition and the segment your house sits in, and once you accept an offer from a financed buyer, closing is commonly another 30 to 45 days for the appraisal and underwriting. Anybody who gives you a confident number before seeing the house is guessing.
What if the appraisal comes in low?
It becomes a negotiation. The buyer can bring the difference in cash, the price can be reduced, the gap can be split, or the appraisal can be challenged with better comparable sales. Which of those happens depends on how the contract was written, which is one of several reasons the contract matters more than people think at the time.
Do I have to disclose problems with the house?
Louisiana uses a property disclosure document and you complete it honestly. Trying to hide a known defect is how a closed sale becomes a lawsuit. Disclosing a known problem, on the other hand, is routine and frequently costs less than sellers fear, because a buyer who is told up front can price it instead of discovering it and walking.
No obligation
Start with the house
Where it is, what shape it is in, and when you want to be out. Everything else follows from those three.
Check it yourself
Sources behind this page
Every claim on this page can be checked against a public source. These are the ones it rests on.
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Verify a license
Louisiana licenses are public record. Search a license number before you sign anything with any agent, including this one.
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REALTOR® standards
The code of ethics a REALTOR® is bound by, and what the 2024 changes to buyer representation require.
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IRS
The federal rules on capital gains, the primary residence exclusion, depreciation recapture and like-kind exchanges.
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FEMA flood maps
The current flood zone for a specific address, from the source. Zones vary lot by lot and the maps are revised.