Home buying and selling can be a stressful time in your life, as it is often one of the biggest transactions you will make. Although the traditional way of buying and selling a home involves a real estate agent, there are many other ways you can make the sale, sometimes without paying a commission, and sometimes avoiding the great stress of preparing your home for the market.
Before making the decision about the best way to sell your home, it is important to consider your options and the benefits and disadvantages of each. Being informed will better prepare you for selling your home and make you aware of what to expect. Although there are benefits and disadvantages to each option, your personal situation can make some options more appealing than others.
1. Traditional Real Estate Agent
With over 90% of home sales utilizing the expertise of a real estate agent, it is no surprise that this is the preferred method.
A real estate agent is well equipped and experienced to help sell your home. Not only have they been trained in how to evaluate the market and prepare your home to sell, but they also have the connections to bring more potential buyers to view your property.
In addition to these benefits, they are familiar with market expectations, best practices, paperwork, and also have well-established professional relationships to help make sure your home closes on time.
Although there are many benefits to using a real estate agent, it does not negate the work you are still expected to do to ready your home for the market. A real estate agent will also come in and evaluate your home, helping to determine any updates or repairs you should consider. These suggestions are then up to you to execute.
This option of selling your home is usually more appealing to individuals that have maintained their home throughout their ownership. By making necessary updates and repairs as needed, it is unlikely that your home will be in need of significant capital to make your home move in ready.
Additional cons that come with using a real estate agent can potentially include the additional fees that are charged. A typical real estate agent charges 3% of the price of the home. When you are working with a buyer and seller agent, this results in a total of 6% going to realtor fees.
2. Property Investor
When you sell your home to a property investor, there are many pros and cons. The biggest benefits to selling to an investor include a quick close, as-is sale, there are no agent fees, and funding is typically not an issue. The investor can also be more flexible – sometimes purchasing your home and allowing you to rent it back until you have secured alternate housing. Meanwhile, this puts the cash from the sale of your home in your pocket.
The disadvantage of selling your home to a property investor is you will potentially sell your home for under market value. Investors are typically looking for wholesale properties that they can make a large return on by remodeling the home and then selling it.
Since the typical homeowner owns their home for an average of ten years, selling your home in as-is condition helps to benefit sellers that have not made updates and repairs to their home as needed. By selling to an investor, the stress of any home rehab can be avoided.
It is also important to note that an investor can be a foreign investor. If this is the case, closing on your home can be a bigger and longer ordeal than initially planned.
3. For Sale By Owner (FSBO)
Selling your home, yourself can be quite the process. If you are unfamiliar with the real estate world, this can be overwhelming. Preparing and marketing your home becomes wholly your responsibility. You must use a discerning eye in evaluating your home as a prospective buyer, and determine what you should do, clean, repair, or update.
Another aspect you must consider is staging your home appropriately, getting good pictures of your space, and evaluating the market so you know how to price your home correctly.
Another concern you should consider is how to best market your home to potential buyers and agents, as it is the agents who typically bring you a buyer.
If these disadvantages to selling your home by owner don’t dissuade you, the benefits include retaining the price of the fees a realtor would have charged. Some experts believe that these savings are often minimal, as an agent’s value can increase the price of the final sale of your home.
4. iBuyer
An iBuyer is a growing field of home buying and selling. These buyers can be similar to property investors, as they can close on your home quickly, don’t require you to make any major repairs, and don’t charge commissions like real estate agents.
At Light Street Residential, we are a well-respected iBuyer in the industry. We make selling your home easy, as we buy any home in any condition. You simply take video and pictures of your home, send it to us, and we do a market analysis of other homes in your area, evaluate the potential cost of repairs and updates, and give you a competitive and reasonable cash offer. We can also close quickly and take a lot of the stress out of the process for you.
If you are looking to sell your home, and don’t want to make the necessary updates that help make your home stand out among the competitors, consider reaching out to us at Light Street Residential and getting an offer today.
Conclusion
Selling your home can be stressful, but there are multiple options available that can help limit that stress and make the process a breeze. When you are well informed, you will be able to make a better assessment on what will be the best decision for you.
Save yourself the stress and reach out to Light Street Residential to get a quote on a cash offer for your home. It never hurts to have multiple options and offers!