Selling a house is never as easy as it seems in theory; but depending on when and where you’re selling your house, it can be a lot easier than it would be under different circumstances. You’ll often hear about the housing market being in favor of the buyer or the seller, but the fact is that sometimes you simply want or need to sell your house without waiting for the perfect time to do so. There is always going to be competition in the housing market; 2019 alone saw the sale of 5.34 million homes, according to NAR. It’s impossible to predict what sellers will do, and you may not be able to push a sale as quickly as you might like to. If you want to sell your house fast, however, there are steps that you can take to speed up the parts of the process that you do have control over, and hopefully set your house up for the best possible sale. With that being said, let’s look into some of the ways that you can encourage the speedy sale of your house, as well as the steps that you’ll need to take into mind when selling a house regardless of how fast you want the process to move.
1. Consider The Type Of Sale You Want
When you want to sell your house fast, you may be more willing to compromise in order to get the process moving quickly. Therefore, you need to consider whether or not you would be willing to sell your house as is, rather than selling it in the traditional manner that we’re used to. Normally, when a house is sold, the buyer may negotiate to have certain repairs done as a part of the closing process. For that matter, many sellers attempting to sell their house in the traditional manner handle repairs preemptively, ensuring that the house looks as appealing to buyers as possible. A house will also need to be appraised before the sale is approved, as the mortgage lenders will often want to ensure that it is fit for sale. When a house is sold as is, under many circumstances the buyers are companies that have the ability to buy them outright, without a mortgage lender. These companies often buy houses as is in order to renovate them and sell them for a profit. This is known as flipping houses.
There are different pros and cons to selling a house as is. If you want to sell your house fast, selling a house as is eliminates the time and money that you’ll devote to preparing the house for sale. For that matter, being able to take a full offer, rather than an offer that is financed through a lender, means that you don’t have to worry about your buyer being approved for a loan. Therefore, the process will be much faster. Of course, you also won’t necessarily be able to sell your house for as much money as you would if you had repairs made ahead of time and went through the traditional sales process. A lender may be able to help buyers meet a higher price, and this would ultimately result in you gaining a higher potential profit. It really depends on what you’re looking for, and what your highest priorities are. Is the point to make more money, or is the point to make a sale happen in the fastest way possible? Many of the steps below may not be necessary if you choose to sell your house as is. But it depends on what you choose to do.
2. Choose A Representation Strategy
After you’ve decided on a sales process, you should decide on whether or not you want to work with a real estate agent. Real estate agents offer a number of different advantages. They know the best strategies for your area, and can even advise you on what to expect if you want to sell your house fast but are also committed to selling within a specific time frame. Your real estate agent can also let you know about what to do in order to make your house as attractive as possible to potential buyers. At the same time, real estate agents also have connections within the industry, in order to potentially get you a better rate on repairs and renovations. Another benefit to consider is the fact that just as you’re attempting to sell your home, real estate agents know people who want to buy. They can connect you with prepared buyers, and ultimately aid in a much smoother sales process. Of course, if you do choose to sell your home through a real estate agent, you do need to understand that they will take a commission off of the sale. For that matter, the real estate agent should ideally come recommended, ideally through referrals from other people who have sold their houses within the same area. Interview an agent before settling on them, and be prepared to negotiate your contract if necessary.
The other option, of course, is selling your on on your own. Lots of people choose the “for sale by owner” process, in which they are essentially their own real estate agents. This means that they don’t have to pay commission, and can handle the sale completely on their own. But if you do this, you’ll lack the connections and experience that a real estate agent has. Sure, you can have a custom sign advertising the fact that your house is for sale up on your yard, but this won’t exactly equate to the type of advertising campaign that a real estate agent can help manage. There are a lot of issues that can come up when you’re selling a house as well, and they can get overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re doing. The decision is yours, and you need to think about what will offer you the greatest profit, as well as the best sale in general. If you want to sell your house fast, however, a real estate agent is often the best way to go.
3. Complete Repairs
As previously mentioned, when you sell your house your house as is, you don’t need to worry about typical repairs and renovations. But if you do want to go through a traditional sale, you should consider how to balance renovations with a speedy sale. If you want to sell your house fast, you can still do so while making necessary repairs. In fact, you can begin the sales process before all of the repairs are done. Improving your home before finishing a sale doesn’t mean that you have to look into whole home renovations. It simply means that you need to have your house in the best shape possible before selling it. This would involve first taking care of any glaring issues and taking care of them. Do a mold clean up if necessary, and go through to make sure that your house doesn’t have any serious risks or health hazards, like a saggy roof, damaged stairs, or other things that would keep a home from passing inspection. You might want to have a pre-inspection done, as this would flag any problems that you could have taken care of before the home goes through an inspection ordered by the buyer.
Once you’re done handling the processes involved in simply ensuring that a home is ready for sale, you can consider the types of improvements that will offer a high return on investment. For example, you may want to spruce up your kitchen by adding quartz countertops, or perhaps replacing your bathtub to ensure that the buyers will be able to get a brand new one. While these types of improvements may cost a good amount of money out of pocket, that value will be added to your home. What this means is that ultimately, you can ask for more for the house. Return on investment improvements can be something of a gamble, but if you make them with the advice of a real estate agent or contractor, you can be reasonably sure about which ones are ultimately worth it. If you want to sell your house fast, too, regardless of the time in which you’re selling it adding certain improvements will make it much more appealing and therefore more likely to sell quickly. You should keep this in mind when considering improvements could boost its curb appeal as well.
4. Consider Pricing Carefully
Of course, your impulse will be to price your home in order to get the highest profit possible, regardless of whether or not you want to sell your house fast. But you need to think long and hard about the price that you’re considering before settling on it. This is one major advantage of working with a real estate agent, especially one with significant experience in your location. They’ll have a good idea of the type of pricing that your type of home would typically be expected to have in your area. Even if you’d like to make more money, there is no point in giving your house a high price if nobody is going to “bite”. Even without a real estate agent, you can make research comps, which would involve comparing the prices of homes that sold recently in your area to the price that you’re considering. You can also look into working with an appraiser. While this can be somewhat pricey, for many it’s ultimately worth the cost in the long term.
One thing to note while you’re considering pricing is that if you price your home competitively, you’ll have a much better chance of selling a house fast. You may even be able to attract the attention of more than one buyer. This could lead to a bidding war between the two, and ultimately you’ll end up gaining more money. The issue to consider when making these decisions as well is how to ensure that you’re pricing your house competitively without making the price too low. Yes, a great deal will attract the attention of buyers, but you don’t want to cheat yourself out of the value of your house. Focus more on advertising the details of your house, like nice gas fireplaces and new floors, than an overly low price. Your house will get the attention it needs no matter what if you market it properly!
5. Market Your Listing Aggressively
There is no such thing as marketing your home overly aggressively. If you’re working with a real estate agent, it will probably be marketed on their website no matter what. Feel free to put up your own signs, and take out your own ads as well. Just make sure that you’re not violating your realtor’s contract when doing so, as you don’t want to essentially compete against a real estate agent that you hired.
Consider, too, posting your house’s listing on local forums and message boards. This could very well catch the attention of potential buyers more than some real estate websites would. Just make sure that you’re following the sites’ terms and conditions when you do so.
6. Fulfill Closing Obligations
You will probably end up agreeing to certain requests as a part of the closing process. For example, you may agree to make certain repairs, or you may agree to pay for a cleaning crew to clean the house professionally before the new owners move in. Chances are that if you want to sell your house fast, you’ll probably agree to cover certain things in order to speed up the closing.
There are a lot of things that go into selling a house, but the closing process is often where things can get confused. This is why you want to make sure that the closing procedure and agreement is carefully explained to both you and the buyer.
When you want to sell your house fast, you need to be prepared to be flexible, perhaps more so than you would be normally. But ultimately, the reward outweighs the sacrifice.