There are many good reasons you might want to sell a house as quickly as possible. Maybe you started a new job in a new city, and you’re hoping to close things out in your old city quickly so you can begin your new life. Maybe you’re in dire need of cash, and you need access to the capital from the transaction immediately. Or maybe you inherited a house unexpectedly, and you’re just trying to take care of it as soon as you can.
In any case, you’ll be motivated to sell the house as quickly as possible—even if it means making some sacrifices along the way. The conventional path is to list your house and employ specific strategies to hasten the selling process, but this could still take weeks, or even months to complete. Instead, there may be an even faster route.
Taking a Cash Offer
Some companies, like Home Wizard, specialize in making cash offers on existing homes. These businesses will evaluate your property, estimating its value, and will make you an all-cash offer to buy your home.
There are several advantages to this approach:
- No repairs or maintenance. One of the biggest hassles of selling a house is committing the fixes and repairs necessary to keep a buyer interested. This ranges from minor nuisance to major burden, depending on the complexity and number of the home’s needs. For example, if you’re selling a former hoarder house, it could take many months of hard work to get the property in shape for a formal sale. But if you’re taking an all cash offer, you’ll be selling the house as is—meaning you won’t be responsible for any cleanup, repairs, or maintenance.
- All cash offers. Selling a house this way means if you accept the offer, you’ll get the proceeds directly, in cash. You won’t have to wait for the buyer to get approval from a lending company, and you won’t get stuck on inconvenient steps like home appraisals.
- No fees or commissions. You also won’t have to pay any fees or commissions, which could apply if you decide to list the home with an agent or market the home yourself.
- Zero listing time. If you reach out to an entity that makes cash offers, you’ll receive an offer in practically no time. You won’t have to list the home at all, and you won’t have to wait for people to discover and tour it.
However, there is one major drawback; in most cases, the immediate, all-cash offer you receive from a company like this will be lower than what you could get in an open market.
Speeding Up the Listing Approach
If you choose not to take a direct cash offer, your only other real option is to list the house for sale conventionally. Here, there are a variety of strategies that could help you sell your home quicker:
- Work with an agent. Working with a real estate agent means you’ll be paying a commission on whatever the final sale price of your home is, compromising your profitability. However, real estate agents tend to be very experienced, and they’re incentivized to sell your home as quickly as possible, since the more deals they close in a given timeframe, the more money they’ll make.
- List your home everywhere. Try to get your home seen by as many people as possible. This usually means listing your home in multiple channels, and marketing it in every way you can think of.
- Price the home to sell. There’s no way to both maximize the potential sale price of your home and sell it as quickly as possible. Generally speaking, the higher your home price is, the longer it’s going to stay on the market, and the lower it is, the faster it will sell. If your main goal is truly selling the home quickly, you’ll need to price the home lower to incentivize offers.
- Know which repairs are worth making. Some repairs will be small and easy to handle, but they could instantly make your home more attractive to a buyer. Some are much more expensive and longer, but will only increase the appeal or sale price of your home slightly. You’ll need to learn to discern the difference, and commit the repairs worth making.
- Stage the home. Finally, take the time to make the house look pretty. Stage the home with proper furniture, invest in curb appeal, and pay for professional photography so your work comes through to buyers searching online.
If you’re interested in selling your house as quickly as possible, consider reaching out to a company or individual that buys homes in cash. There’s no obligation to move forward, and you might find the offer you receive is higher than you originally thought.
