You are looking for advice that will help you sell your house faster and for more money? Unless this is the first web page you’ve visited on your search for answers, you’ve probably already encountered a half dozen articles giving you the same generic house selling advice: “declutter your house, remove personal items, perform all necessary repairs, add some curb appeal…”; these are all basic tips any real estate agent would give and is good advice for a seller who just wants to sell his house and is not pressed by time or money. Considering that most agent’s listings will remain on the market for months on end, you might not have the option to wait for so long if you need to sell your house.
Even if you don’t follow your realtor’s advice and you don’t repair, paint, clean and stage your house; you will have to deal with a lengthy negotiation, inspections and loan approval process that can take months and cost thousands of dollars.
We buy a lot of houses every month. People that sell to us cite a variety of reasons for needing to to sell their house. Most of the reasons we’ve identified can fit in one or more of the following categories:
1. Financial Reasons – Many people realize they can’t afford the house they are living. Maybe they purchased a house that is outside their budget. Sometimes people call because they lost their job, or some important source of income.
2. Life Events – Downsizing is very common among couples after they send their kids to college or marry. Homeowners find themselves with in a house that is too big to clean and maintain. Couples going through divorce often contact us with the intention to liquidate the house and divide the profit. Similarly, recipients of a estate contact us to sell their inherited property in order to share the profits between the beneficiaries after experiencing a death in the family.
3. Relocation – Many people decide to sell before or right after moving to a new place. Most sellers are moving because they got reassigned in their jobs or just got tired of living in their city and want a fresh start. We also get some sellers that are about to be deployed by the military and don’t want the burden of maintaining a property back home. Finally, we get calls from people who are about to go to jail and they know they won’t be able to pay for the house any more.
4. Emergencies – Sometimes people call us because they need money for an emergency such as a medical procedure, or a bail bond. Selling their house fast is sometimes the only way this people have get money. We’ll try to help out as much as possible.
5. Exhaustion– Owners of houses that are damaged or too old and just want to sell. These type of sellers usually see their property as a burden and just want to get rid of it. Don’t want to or don’t have the money to repair it. Also, we see a lot of people who have been trying to sell their house for too long using a realtor and are just tired. In this category we also have landlords who are tired of dealing with their tenants and just want to sell their rentals.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how much you sell your house for, what matter is how much you get to keep.
Selling your house is a serious matter that should not be taken lightly. If you are looking to sell for maximum profit and you have the time, good for you. But if you don’t have the money to perform all necessary repairs, or all you really want is to sell your house right now? There are ways to sell a your house in just a few days, and no, it is not a scam.
Hiring an Agent Is Not Always the Best Thing To Do
When thinking of selling their home, the first thing the average homeowner will do is start looking for a real estate agent. Most of us don’t even question this, we are sure we need an agent to sell our house.The National Association of Realtors has done such a terrific job advertising for their members, most of us have a pretty well established mental pathway that associates home selling and real estate agent. It is automatic decision and it goes undetected, we don’t even think about the alternatives. We don’t ask ourselves in what other ways could I sell sell this house if I don’t want to use a realtor? Most people simply believe that a real estate agent is legally required when selling their home. As if only real estate agents can sell real estate, just like only a doctor can practice medicine. Most people think you need a license to sell houses.
The fact is you don’t need an agent to sell a house, especially if it is your own house. But most people don’t know this, they assume they need one. People dont think critically when selling their house they way they do when selling their cars or other belongings. and so they call their realtor and don’t even consider there are alternative ways of selling.
But using a real estate agent is not always the most beneficial way to sell your house. Even though an agent might be able to bring a higher offer for your house (and they will advertise this), there are disadvantages you need to know about.
Time is Money When Selling Your House
Buyers are often confused by their agents who tell them to be patient, waiting month after month waiting for full price offer. But the agent is not responsible for the property’s holding costs; he gets paid on commission. He will earn the same 3 to 6% whether you decide to sell today or in a year. Costs do not accumulate for your agent, so he is willing to wait as long as necessary to maximize the sales price and so thus his commission.
The same is not true for you as a homeowner. An offer for 100,000 today is worth more to you than the same offer six months in the future. Every month your potential profit gets eroded by property taxes, insurance payments, maintenance fees and utilities. Even if you don’t adjust from inflation, a hundred thousand dollar offer today is worth more than the same $100,000 six months from today.
There are ways to sell your house in days (instead of months or years). Find out how much you can get if you sell directly to a professional home buyer as opposed to going the traditional way.
Owning a property has costs associated with it and most people don’t consider these costs when selling their house. Most sellers do not give a second thought to the opportunity costs of using a real estate agent. As time passes, these costs accumulate while you keep waiting for an acceptable offer. Your real estate agents tells you to be patient, month after month.
The statistics do show that on average, sales assisted by real estate agents do in fact command a higher sales price. However, these statistics fail to report and take into consideration the costs that the homeowner will invariably incur by using a real estate agent these include repair costs, administrative costs, holding costs, closing costs
Holding Costs: If it takes you 6 months to sell your house, you need to include your holding costs to the equation. That is 6 months of property taxes, maintenance fees, repairs, utilities, late fees.
Legal Costs: Before you sell your house, you will need to make sure your house ownership can be transferred free and clear. That means if there is any legal barriers to transferring ownership, you will need to resolve them before you sell. You will need to pay a lawyer before selling a house that has liens attached, claims. If a house is owned by more than one owner such as is the case in divorce or with inherited houses is going through the probate process. Legal fees can be a major home equity sucker.
Administrative Costs: Before you sell your house, you need to make sure there are no such as open work permits, unpaid utilities, city code violations, unpaid property taxes, existing financing. Existing loans, you will only be able to sell the property
Closing Costs: The sale amount is never the profit you end up with. You always need to account for 6 percent commissions, title search, attorney fees, taxes and other hidden costs. These costs will invariably add up to thousands of dollars.
Repair Costs: Chances are, if you are going to sell your house with an agent and you want to get top dollar, you will need to make some repairs and updates. Your agent might also instruct you to hire a professional home stager who will depersonalize and decorate your home and make it more attractive to prospective buyers.
In addition to these costs, we also need to recognize the inconvenience of having to clean your house and leaving the house before each showing so the buyers can feel free to roam through your house. The lesson here is not to focus on how much you can sell your house for, but how much of that money you can keep. Depending on your situation, accepting a lower offer with no contingencies and no middle men to pay can be more profitable to you than a more attractive offer with lots of loose ends.
Although hiring a real estate agent can be beneficial in some cases, there are some disadvantages you should be aware of before making the decision of hiring one.
Avoid Getting Stuck With an Agent
First, most of them will lock you into an exclusive listing agreement. If you sign this document, you are screwed. Even if you find a buyer yourself, you are legally obligated to pay your agent the typical six percent commission. Most sellers are unaware. If possible do not sign an exclusive listing agreement.
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Conflicts of Interest
A real estate agent makes a living on commissions. Regardless of what they might say, real estate agents have their own best interest at hand, and not yours. Getting paid on commissions create some conflicts of interests that agents will not disclose to you.
The best way to explain this is using an example:
To make numbers easy let ase the house to be 1,000,000.
An agent wants to maximize his commissions. After he lists the house, he starts getting offers.
There are usually two agents involved on a sale, a listing agent and a selling agent.The listing agent is the person who found the seller and listed the house on the MLS. The selling agent is the person who found the buyer. Each agent typically gets 3% commission. A listing agent can also be the selling agent it he finds the buyer, thus doubling his commission.
Lets say your agent is list your house for 1,000,000 and after four months he collects 2 offers.
The first offer is for full price, 1,000,000, but since another agent found the buyer, your agent will only get 3%. That means your agent would get 3% of 1,000,000 which is $30,000. The second offer is for $900,000, significantly lower but your agent found the buyer, which means he will get both commissions for a full 6 percent instead of 3%. For the lower price of 900,000, your agent will get 6% which is $54,000. Even though legally real estate agents are required to present all offers to their clients, which offer do you think your agent will present to you?
| Offer Amount | Agents Involved | Commission | Your Agent Gets |
| 1,000,000 | Listing and Selling Agents | 3% | 30,000 |
| 900,000 | Listing Agent Only | 6% | 6,000 |
| 960,000 | Listing and Selling Agents | 3% | 28,800 |
| 510,000 | Listing Agent Only | 6% | 30,600 |
Notice that your agent would still make more money by convincing you to take the last offer offer of 510,000.
Most agents will simply list your property on the MLS and wait for other agents to start calling. You have to make the decision if that is worth the money
A real estate agent does have one major advantage, real estate agents have access to the Multiple Listing Service.
If you have an expensive property, then it might be worth it to work with an agent that will properly stage and market your house. Spend their own money marketing your property, making calls and send flyers to likely buyers in your area and hold weekly open houses. It’s not that you can’t do this yourself, but if you are busy working, having someone else do this work might be worth it.
The thing is, anyone can post their property on the MLS without entering into a restrictive listing agreement by using a flat fee MLS listing service. A quick google search will reveal local companies in every major market offering flat fee listings. They allow you to post your own photographs and will list your name and phone number as the primary contact for other agents to contact you (instead of you agent’s).
Isn’t it crazy to pay thousands of dollars to a real estate agent just for listing your property on the MLS? That is what most listing agents to.
Becoming a real estate agent is trivial. A person of reasonable intelligence can get licensed in a week’s time by taking an intensive course online or at a local real estate school. In fact, some sellers (like me) decide to get licensed just to save the commission when buying or selling their own house. By getting licensed, I was able to save almost twenty five thousand dollars when I decided to sell my $300,000 apartment to move into a $500,000 home. By being my own realtor, I saved $9,000 on commission when I sold my apartment I received a $15,000 commission when I purchased my new home.
If you are looking to sell your house, you should at least consider some of the alternative ways of selling. Alternative techniques such as lease options, equity sharing,.
In conclusions:
People sell their houses in non-traditional ways for a variety of reasons including financial, medical, personal and legal reasons. Most home sellers think that hiring a real estate agent is a necessity when selling their house, when in reality, there is no law requiring an agent to a transaction. Most agents are really not very smart, becoming an agent is not hard; almost anyone can do it in a matter of days or weeks. Before hiring a realtor, ask him about his requirements.
You can get in trouble by signing an exclusive listing agreement, you may need to pay commission even if the agent did not do his job. You could be months aways from closing even after your agent finds you a buyer and you accept his offer.
Even if they are prequalified, the bank still needs to approve them. Banks are slow and inefficient, and their approval process that can take many months. There are alternative ways of selling your house that most agents don’t want you to use or don’t know about. You can sell your house in days by selling in non-traditional ways. Agreeing to a cash deal, a rent to own, or an equity sharing agreement are some of the ways you can sell your house faster.
Homeowners can come out on top by thinking critically when it comes to selling their homes. Fixating on how much they can sell for instead of how much they will get to keep is a common logic error among home sellers. Even though a good agent can get you a better price for your house, you should also consider the cost of his services and the hidden costs of owning a house for an extended period of time which can negate the price premium and cause additional hurdles.