Every seller wants, hopes and prays for a fast sale. However, few know what steps to take to make this happen. So, if you want to sell your home fast, here’s what professional investors do:
First, you must examine and understand the current market. Is it a “buyer’s market” or a “seller’s market”? Each bring with them their own techniques and challenges. At the time of this post, it is safe to say that the current market is unlike any other in history and it is neither a “buyer’s market” or a “seller’s market”, it is a “qualified buyer’s market” and a “creative deal structuring seller’s market”. Presently, most homes are not selling at or anywhere near retail or true fair market value. With an overabundance of deeply discounted properties available from banks (foreclosures or REOs) and directly from desperate sellers (short sales), a qualified buyer would be unwise to pay anything near retail or full fair market value. Selling homes is no easy proposition in this market!
So, to sell your home fast in this market, you either have to sell it at a deep discount or under a creative owner finance deal structure. To sell your home fast at a deep discount requires either the equity position for you to lower you price, the requisite cash available that you can bring to closing so you can lower your price (if your mortgage exceeds the sales price) or the credit, psychological and emotional devastation of a short sale.
But what do you do if you want and need to sell but you don’t have the necessary equity or cash to bring to closing to lower your price and you don’t want your credit destroyed due to a short sale?
Time to get creative.
Personally, if you asked for tips to sell your home fast in this market, here’s what I would tell you to do:
- First, prepare your property for sale by getting your property in a marketable condition. There is a ton of competition and you need to sell the sizzle. Spruce up the paint, clean the carpets, get the landscaping straightened out (curb appeal), etc. (Yes, selling your home fast is going to take some work!)
- Then, it is time for an all out blitzkrieg of marketing. You need to employ every resource imaginable. This includes getting it listed in the MLS (more on this below), advertising it online on the hundreds of for sale by owner websites that are available (many of them offer automatic syndication to dozens of other websites as well so you can place an ad one time and have it appear in dozens of locations and search results) and placing bandit signs in the general area around the home.
- At the same time, you also want to market the property as available for owner financing
- If you are smart, you work with a firm like ours that specializes in owner finance deals AND (and this is a BIG AND) has a database of more than 5000 active buyers currently seeking properties and website visits from more than 10,000 people per month from all 50 states and 9 other countries. The reason is that it gives you instant access to a buyer’s list and free marketing. Most (not all, but most) Realtors do not have an active buyer’s database and do not have thousands of people inquiring on their listings every month.
Now, this may seem a little strange, but though I grew up in a real estate brokerage, have been personally licensed as a real estate agent, have a mother who has been a Realtor in Florida for 40 years and am married to a beautiful wife that was also licensed as a real estate agent, I do NOT advise hiring a Realtor to market your property using the conventional listing methodology with a 5%-7% commission. Why not? Sound crazy?
Let me explain. First, if you did any type of high LTV financing in the last 5 or 6 years, you probably don’t have the equity to pay a Realtor’s commission out of your proceeds after price negotiations. Even if you do, most Realtors do not provide anywhere near the value to be worth 5%-7% of the purchase price. The representation provided by most Realtors is absolutely criminal. We deal with them on a daily basis all over the country. Most of them don’t return phone calls. Not exactly what you want especially if you are making payments on a vacant property that you are trying to sell. They generally want to list the property, get tattooed on the deal for 2.5%-3.5% (their split of the co-op commission of 5%-7%), put it in MLS, stick a sign in the yard, and sit back and let another Realtor sell the home. Not exactly what you want if you want to sell your home fast. And, honestly, you don’t need them. If you want your property listed in the Multiple Listing Service and can afford a 2.5%-3.5% in a commission for the buyer’s Realtor, locate and hire a flat fee broker who will charge you $500 or less to get the property in the MLS. They will get it listed and generally not do anything else (which is what most Realtors do even when getting a commission). Let’s face it, no one can “sell” your home fast better than you. You know it, have all the answers, believed in it enough to buy it yourself and are intelligent enough to fill in the blanks on a form contract (which is what Realtors do, fill in blanks on a form contract).
So, to recap, to sell your home fast:
- Prep the property for sale
- Marketing blitzkrieg (flat fee broker for listing in MLS, online advertising on For Sale By Owner websites, bandit signs)
- JV Partnership with a firm or firms specializing in creative deal structuring and owner finance scenarios
Here’s what this marketing strategy does and why it works to sell your home fast:
First, it gets the property in competitive shape for sale. Second, it provides massive exposure to the MLS (if you want it and can afford it, though honestly, with the advent of the Internet, I don’t think you need it) and other online venues which is where people go first to look for homes. Third, it provides a more localized approach with bandit signs in strategic locations around your neighborhood and main routes to your home from the major thoroughfares so you capture buyers who are driving through neighborhoods looking for properties. Fourth, it provides you with the option and flexibility that if you do not get an acceptable offer for an outright purchase to sell the property via short term owner financing and have someone else carry the cost and responsibility of the property, which, in many cases provides you with the ability to live to fight another day and not go further in the hole if the property is vacant. If you are living in the property, it provides you with the ability to move and not be saddled with an albatross around your neck. Many sellers mistakenly think that they have to sell their home to buy another. In many cases, if you are going through the “traditional” route of mortgage financing, this can be true if you have a debt to income ratio problem as many lenders now require proof of being a landlord with income reported from the home for 12 months via a tax return BEFORE they will count the income in your debt to income ratio. In other words, even if someone is paying you money every month that you can document and prove, if it hasn’t been for 12 months and/or reported on your tax return, many lenders will not give you credit for the income and deny your loan. This is once again, where the capital markets have intervened to fix the problems in the current market and economy by creating owner finance solutions. Need to sell your home fast so you can qualify for a mortgage to buy a new home but can’t sell? Enter owner financing, for you and the person looking to buy your home. In other words, you can sell your home fast with owner financing and you can buy another owner financed home. Problem solved and no mortgage hassles, delays, hoops to jump through or red tape to deal with. Owner financed homes are your solutions. Here’s where you can find out more: Sell Your Home Fast
By the way, you might have seen sings around your town advertising “Sell House Fast!” or “Sell House Quick” or “Sell Home Today”. You may have even seen the signs that say “We Buy Ugly Houses” or “We Buy Houses!”. While these can seem like a good solution if you are trying to sell your home, upon further examination you will find out that they are really just real estate investors looking to buy your house for 65% or less than what it is worth.
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