JW Baelly  /  Journal  /  Selling a home in LA

Guide · No. 02

Selling a home in LA: the agent's checklist

I have run this checklist hundreds of times. The order matters. Skipping a step usually costs more than the step itself.

10 min readUpdated 2026By JW Baelly

01 Pricing: be honest with yourself

Sellers want the highest price. Buyers want the lowest. The market settles somewhere in between, and the agent who can show you exactly where without flattering you is more valuable than the one who promises you the highest number.

I price homes against three things: (1) comps that actually closed in the last 90 days within half a mile, (2) what's currently active and not selling — that's the ceiling buyers can compare you to, and (3) days-on-market trends in the neighborhood. If similar homes are sitting at 60+ days, your list price needs to acknowledge that.

The first two weeks are the most important. A home that sits at the wrong price for two weeks gets stigmatized. Buyers wonder what's wrong with it. Reductions become necessary, and you usually end up below where you would have started if you had priced right from day one.

02 Prep work: small money, big returns

I have never had a seller regret paint. I have had many regret a remodel. Paint is the highest-ROI dollar you can spend before listing — a fresh neutral on the main walls makes the whole home photograph and walk better. Budget around $4,000-8,000 for a thorough interior paint job depending on size.

After paint, in order of impact: deep cleaning (including windows inside and out), declutter and remove about 30% of your furniture and personal items, deal with any deferred maintenance that an inspector will flag anyway, and update the landscaping. Curb appeal sells the photo that gets the click.

Skip the kitchen remodel. Buyers will redo it to their taste anyway, and you almost never recoup the money in sale price. The exception: if the kitchen is genuinely broken — cracked counter, dead appliances — fix to functional, not to luxurious.

03 Photography: the one place not to economize

Listing photos are now the entire first impression. The MLS feeds into every search portal, and 95% of buyers decide whether to visit based on the photos alone. Bad photos kill good homes.

I use one of two professional photographers, both around $400-700 for a typical LA single-family home including some twilight shots and a drone overview. Some agents charge this back to the seller, some include it. I include it — it's my product on the line as much as yours.

Stage if the home is vacant. Vacant rooms read as smaller and colder in photos, and buyers struggle to imagine furniture placement. Even partial 'vignette' staging — just the living room and primary bedroom — costs $2,000-3,500 and adds noticeable money to the offers. If you'd like original art in the staging instead of stock prints, I bring my own paintings at no extra cost.

04 The first 14 days on market

Most homes that sell, sell to a buyer who toured in the first 14 days. That's why we front-load: photos and listing live on a Wednesday or Thursday, broker preview on Friday, open house Saturday and Sunday, and offers due by the following Wednesday.

The compressed schedule creates urgency. Buyers who might 'think about it' get pushed off the fence by the deadline. Multiple-offer scenarios become more likely. Even if you receive only one offer, the threat of competing offers usually keeps the buyer from lowballing.

If we don't get offers by day 14, something is wrong — usually price or photos. We diagnose by week two: was traffic high but no offers (price too high), or was traffic low (photos or listing description not pulling clicks)? The fix is different in each case.

05 Handling a low offer without panicking

A low offer is not an insult. It's an opening bid. The buyer is testing what you'll accept. My standard advice: counter at or near asking. Don't 'meet in the middle' on the first round — that signals you're more flexible than you need to be.

If the buyer's offer is so low it seems unserious, ask their agent about the rationale before responding. Sometimes there's a legitimate reason — they noticed a specific issue, they're stretched on price, they have a tight close requirement. Knowing the why changes how we respond.

And remember: the worst-case of countering at full price is the buyer walks. If their offer was already $200k below asking, they were probably going to walk anyway. The best case is they come up. Almost never does a counter result in a worse outcome than just accepting a lowball.

06 After accepted offer: hold the line

Once you've accepted, the buyer has 10-17 days to inspect and ask for repairs or credits. Most do. Some asks are reasonable (an old water heater); some are not (purely cosmetic). The right answer depends on how strong your other offers were, how far we are from list price, and how motivated this buyer is.

My general rule: respond to legitimate health-and-safety items, push back on cosmetic ones, and never give back more than 1.5% of the sale price in credits unless something genuinely surprising came up.

Close day, you sign at the title office, the wire goes through, and someone — usually me — comes to pick up the keys. Then it's the new owner's home. A different family. A different chapter. That part still surprises me every time.