Trying to sell your home can be quite the undertaking, right? I mean, the process of getting your home ready for the market, hiring an agent, and finding out what your property is worth gives most people a headache just thinking about it. This is what’s considered the “traditional” method by which to sell a home. Most people that are in the market of selling their home use this method.
But what if there was another method? A method that was easier, faster and not as painful? What if you could sell to an investor for cash? Let me give you a run down of the common problems you may run into when trying to sell your home using the traditional method.
Getting the House Ready
The process of getting your house ready for the market requires you to “prep the house”. This means, getting your house ready to look appealing for prospective buyers. So whatever appliances, flooring, painting, roofing that needs to be upgraded, guess who has to pay for that? You guessed it, you do.
Even if you’re a handy person and know a thing or two about construction, electrical work, carpentry etc., that’s still a cost on your time. Selling your house to a cash buyer, who are usually willing to buy a house in an “as is” condition would solve this problem for you as a seller.
Finding a Good Real Estate Agent
A real estate agent can either make or break a deal for you. It really does make a difference what kind of real estate agent you’re working with when it comes to selling a home. The problem is, finding a good real estate agent takes a while.
A good realtor usually is found through word of mouth referral.
Even after you have found a good realtor, you have to go through their process of staging the property, list it on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and wait for offers to come in. That process can also take a while to complete. You also need to factor in the agent’s fee, which is typically 6 percent of the final sales price. Some sellers don’t mind paying the 6 percent because their agent is out there working hard for them to sell their house. But that commission fee can be quite significant when you look at the math.
But you may need to sell now, and without the use of an agent. A cash buyer can move much faster than an agent could, and there are no added fees to pay.
Time is Against You
Let’s say you do decide to the agent route. After you’ve found a good real estate agent, made the necessary repairs and upgrades (additional cost to you), you decide to place the property on the market. According to Zillow, it is estimated that a house will spend between 65 to 93 days on the market before its sold. That’s 2 to 3 months before an offer gets placed on your house that you can accept, which then goes to closing. The close itself can also be another issue…more on that later.
Of course that number can change depending on where you’re located and the current market conditions.
But what if you don’t have 2, 3 or 4 months to sell your house? What if you’re in a financial jam, or you need to relocate, or you lost a job? In this case, selling to an investor with cash on hand could be the answer for you. The thing with investors (cash buyers), is that they want to move quickly and are willing to buy your house now! They even pay the closing cost for you.
Closing on Your House
OK so you’ve made it to this part of the selling process, the close. Probably the most important part of selling a home. At the end of the day, nothing really matters more than receiving payment for your house. All the other fancy stuff you have to go through to get the house to this point, doesn’t matter as much as closing on your property.
At this point in the process, one would probably think, “ok now we’re in the clear…we’re finally going to receive a check for our house”. Not so fast, this is not the case in many instances.
Selling a home to a regular buyers is not as simple as you might think. Reason is that most buyers use traditional financing to a buy house. Sometimes they’re financing doesn’t clear all the way, and you won’t find out until its time to close.
How disappointing would that be?
To have reached all the way to closing, only to discover your buyer is not able to get their funding straightened out for whatever reason. This can suck big time, and can be very frustrating! An all cash buyer however, does not need to go through any process of financing. They’re paying with their own cash.
Your Options
As you can see, there are many issues that you’ll face when trying to sell a home using the traditional method, and these are just a few. There are countless more that you will face. Some sellers may argue that they don’t want to sell their property to an investor because all they want to do is make low ball offers. In turn the seller doesn’t get anything for their property.
While investors do make offers that are lower than a regular retail buyer, there are many benefits to this as a seller. You get to sell your property much sooner (typical investors can close within 7 to 10 business days). It releases you from the responsibility of fixing up the property because the investor will buyer the property as is. Closing costs are handled by the investor, which is typically not the case in a traditional close. That responsibility falls mostly on you, the seller. Sure it’s negotiable, but it tends to lean more towards the seller than it does the buyer.
So sure, an investor’s offer my be lower, but the numerous benefits you receive from selling a home to a cash buyer investor will take the sting out of their offer being “low”.