How to sell a house in New Orleans, start to finish.

We walk the house, talk about timing, and I show you what comparable properties actually sold for rather than what they asked. You leave with a price, a punch list, a launch date and a net sheet. Nothing gets signed until you have all four in your hands.

Paint, repairs, decluttering, and the short list of fixes that pay for themselves. For most houses, preparation and production fit inside about two weeks, and if your calendar asks for more time or less, we build around it. I will tell you what to skip as readily as what to do, because money spent on the wrong thing here does not come back at the sale.

Photography, a floor plan, film where the house earns it, the written description, and the MLS build. You approve every image before anything goes public. On launch morning it hits the portals, the Sotheby’s International Realty network and my own list at the same time.

The first two weekends tell you most of what you need to know. I ask every agent who comes through for real feedback and pass it to you weekly, unedited. Offers tend to arrive in clusters or not at all, and I will tell you which one you are seeing.

Inspection, then appraisal, then whatever those two turn up. This is where deals wobble. Most of my work here is keeping the other side’s lender, inspector and agent moving, and telling you a decision is coming a week before it is due rather than the morning of.

Everyone signs in one room, in front of a notary and two witnesses. Bring an unexpired photo ID and be ready to state your marital status and marriage date, because that is what holds sales up more than anything else. You hand over the keys and your proceeds go out the same day.

What the rest of the country calls closing, Louisiana calls the act of sale, and the difference is more than the word. The document that transfers the property is drafted and passed by a notary rather than merely witnessed by one, and it is signed in person by everyone, in front of two witnesses who are not parties to the sale.

Your notary here does what a closing attorney does elsewhere. They draft the act of sale, examine the title, and record it afterward. Under the standard state purchase agreement the buyer chooses them, not you, which surprises nearly every seller. It is negotiable, and worth negotiating if your timing is tight.

Before the sale can pass, someone traces the property through every conveyance in the public record. On houses that have been in one family for decades, what surfaces is usually an unopened succession, a mortgage that was paid but never cancelled, or a spouse who never signed. All of it is fixable. All of it is faster if you start early.

Louisiana requires a Property Disclosure Document on nearly every residential sale, and it asks you directly about flooding, drainage, water damage and past claims. Anything built before 1978 carries the federal lead paint disclosure as well. Separately, expect buyers to ask for your elevation certificate and your insurance declarations and claims history.