So you’ve listed your house, and it’s been for sale on the MLS a LOT longer than you had hoped. It’s a well-know fact that the longer a house sits on the market, the more price reductions a seller has to make and the harder it becomes to sell. If a house is listed for too long, buyers might even assume something is wrong with it, and they won’t even set up a showing! If you have a house you need to sell and listing it is taking too long, keep reading. You might be wondering how can I sell my house fast? Below we’ll cover things you can do if your MLS listing just isn’t working out.
Wait it Out
Whether you decided to list your house “for sale by owner,” or you decided to hire a real estate agent, there are no guarantees your house will sell in the timeframe you need it to. In fact, there are no guarantees it will sell at all. If you need to sell quickly in order to relocate for a new job or to be closer to aging family members, this can be especially stressful. Making the decision to sell your house is difficult in the first place, and you probably put in a lot of time, money, and energy to try to attract buyers and get the price you want. For many homeowners, there’s a lot of pressure behind the decision to sell and even more pressure to sell in time for a major life transition. This pressure probably has you wondering how can I sell my house fast and move on? The reality is, few people have the luxury of time and money to be able to hold onto a listing for an indefinite period of time while still paying all the holding costs associated with owning a house.
Consider Becoming a Landlord
In order to recoup some of the holding costs associated with owning a property, some homeowners decide to rent out a house that isn’t selling. After all, if you’ve cleaned it out and made repairs in order to prepare it for listing, chances are it’s ready for a tenant to move in right? This is a great strategy, especially if you can hire a property manager or an agent to help you with all the ins and outs of being a landlord. However, homeowners who are new to being a landlord are usually surprised to discover that even when the rental market is strong, it takes a lot of management in order to be profitable. Successful landlords manage their properties like a business. Being a landlord includes tasks such as finding and keeping good tenants (which usually means background and credit checks), making middle-of-the-night emergency repairs when a tenant calls saying the toilet has overflowed or the heat doesn’t work, tracking down rent, and being aware of legal liabilities when holding non-paying tenants to the terms of their leases. There are many daily challenges landlords face, and anyone considering renting out a property must determine how much money, time, and energy they can put into property maintenance and tenant management.
Offer Rent to Own
If you decide to change your MLS listing to a rent-to-own listing, remember at the end of the agreement, the renters still aren’t required to actually purchase the property. In a rent-to-own scenario, buyers usually pay an upfront non-refundable consideration or option fee for the “option” to purchase the property in the future. Your rent-to-own agreement should always specify the final purchase date and how the price will be determined. Until that specific date — and not until the sale is actually closed — you will remain responsible for property taxes, any HOA fees, insurance, and many of the maintenance costs. Typically, the current owner handles major repairs and the renters are responsible for lawn maintenance, pool cleaning, etc., unless those are included in HOA fees. Be clear in your rent-to-own agreement regarding who is responsible for items such as large appliances, structural repairs, mechanical repairs, and routine maintenance. As you can see, this option is similar to being a landlord. Whether or not you sell the house at the end of the agreement would, to a large extent, remain up in the air. If the above options are not good answers for your specific real estate goals, and you’re still wondering how can I sell my house fast, then keep reading! There is another solution that might be a better fit for you!
Sell Your House Directly to a Professional Cash Home Buyer
Selling your house directly to a cash home buyer like Kendall Partners allows you to sell your house faster, without having to make repairs or upgrades. You may not even have to clean it out! It also gives you access to the proceeds faster when you sell your house directly. When you list a house on the MLS and market to a traditional buyer, the transaction will require buyer qualifications from banks, time for a mortgage lender to complete underwriting on their loan, the buyer’s property inspections, appraisals, and more! After you’ve spent weeks or months keeping your house showing ready, you’ll spend at least another 45 days or more trying to work through all the details of the sale just to get to closing. Even then, you can be days away from closing the deal and the buyer’s lender still may not end up approving their loan! You can easily find yourself back at square one on your listing. By that time, other interested buyers have moved on and are under contract on another house. You’re stuck finding a completely new buyer! Unfortunately, when you put a house back on the market after a deal falls through the assumption is there is something very wrong or undesirable about the house itself. After a deal falls through — no matter WHY it fell through — rarely does the next offer end up bringing in more profit for the seller. By the way, when you do find a buyer and close the deal, you’ll still be paying thousands in commission at closing.
When you sell your house for cash, directly to a professional home buyer like Kendall Partners, you skip the hassle of a traditional home sale. No cleaning, no repairs or upgrades, and no maintaining the house in showing ready condition for weeks or months on end. No agents, no parade of people wandering through your house for open houses or random showings during the evenings and weekends. No trying to communicate through agents for negotiations. And because we buy your house with cash, there are no surprises from banks or lenders. When we say we buy houses with cash, we mean we have cash available to buy your house, in as little as 14 days from the date of contract. We are not wholesalers who just try to get your house under contract and then look for a third party to take over the deal. We buy your house with cash, closing on it and taking title to the property. This gives you the freedom to work directly with us – the buyer – to sell your house fast, as-is, for cash.
If you’ve ever wondered how you can sell your house fast, give us a call today at (630) 389-8232 or submit your information below. Take a look at our testimonials and hear from satisfied homeowners who have worked with us to sell a house fast for cash. We’re professionals, and our hassle-free home buying process can help you sell your house fast!