No matter whether you live in the city, the suburbs or the country, the house you own is more than four walls and a roof. It’s your home, the place where you connect with family and friends, where you unwind after work, and where you wake up most mornings.
A home is also one of the biggest investments you’ll ever make.
It’s not cheap. The mortgage payments, taxes on the land, and homeowner’s insurance can add up to hefty monthly payments. Sometimes, those payments get out of control, and homeowners start thinking about a ‘sell house fast cash’ out that would allow them to get their cash reserves back under control.
Other times a job opportunity is too good to turn down, and the house has to be sold in order to move on.
No matter how you look at it, selling a house you’ve lived in and loved is a tough decision. It’s hard work, and there’s a lot of mental effort involved. As you think about whom to list with, what to ask for your house and who your buyers might be, you can also consider the possibility of selling your home for cash.
Cash sales might be one of the best sell house quickly tips available.
In our society, selling a house for cash isn’t a common tradition. Only around eight percent of the home sales are cash sales. On the other hand, there are some real benefits that might make selling a home for cash exactly the solution you’re looking for.
Real estate agents are always on the lookout for homes to list and sell because they make most of their money from commissions. Knowing who buys houses for cash can open up a new set of options and give you some freedom in how you sell your home.
You can start with a real estate agent. Ask if they know who buys houses for cash in order to flip homes or rent them out. You can sometimes find information about who buys houses for cash in the local classified ads, too, and even occasionally on posters or flyers on street corners.
A real estate agent might also know of people who have moved from an area with a more profitable housing market. If buyers have the potential to buy a home for cash, they’ll probably do it rather than take out a mortgage.
If you’re selling your home for cash, you might also skip the real estate agent altogether. Ask local handymen if they know who buys houses for cash. Find your own buyer, and work with a title company that you choose.
Traditionally, once a buyer and seller agree on a purchase price and the buyer hands over the earnest money, the house goes into escrow. This is a long process covering four to seven weeks (generally 30-45 days) during which a lot of paperwork and footwork goes on behind the scenes.
One of the first things that happen during escrow is a home inspection. The inspector will look for areas where the home needs repair, and if there’s an extensive or costly list of repairs, the buyer can walk away from the deal.
Often the buyer and seller can agree on a way to get the repairs taken care of, but that can add time and stress to the situation.
There’s also the home appraisal, which the lender orders. The appraisal shows the fair market value of the home based on its condition and how it compares to other homes that have recently sold in the area. An appraiser often estimates the appraisal in $500 increments, so their work is detailed and can take a lot of time.
If the house appraises well and doesn’t need a lot of fixing up, the mortgage has a higher chance of going up than if it needs repairs and appraises low. Problems with the title and difficulty for buyers to get homeowners insurance or otherwise qualify for a loan can cause a house to fall out of escrow.
Compared to the ‘sell house fast cash’ home sales, in which the house is sold for cash only, traditional sales are cumbersome, slow and more unstable than they were in the past.
There are quite a few reasons to consider a ‘sell house fast cash’ scenario. The escrow process move much more quickly, it can be more convenient, and it can also be more secure because the money is already there.
If you need to move for your job or perhaps just want to get out from under burdensome mortgage payments before a home goes into short sale or foreclosure, you might need to act quickly. Selling your home for cash is one of the best ways to do this.
Here’s why:
Really, in a ‘sell house fast cash’ scenario, you’ll probably be waiting to see if the title is clear and if the buyers can get insurance before proceeding to the closing date. Many cash sales on homes happen within one to three weeks.
Because there doesn’t have to be an appraisal or an inspection, you don’t have to worry about anyone except potential buyers walking through your home. You don’t have to wait for reports, and you don’t have to worry about expensive repairs and when you’ll find the time to do them.
Overall, escrow experiences can make you feel like you’re living in limbo. The simplicity of a cash sale can take away some of the headaches associated with all the extra projects.
There’s a possibility that working with an investor who buys houses for cash has already made several deals like this. Even if you’re new to this game, they’ll have a good handle on what needs to be done and when.
Cash sales are less likely to fall out of escrow than traditional home sales are. This is because the money is already guaranteed to be there. You don’t have to worry that your buyer won’t qualify for the loan or that the lender’s system will go down on the closing date.
Also, an investor who buys houses for cash in order to rent them out or flip them will be looking at your home as a good place to invest money. Many of them are seasoned and know what they have to get in order before the closing date.
The sooner your cash-only sale closes, the sooner they can start making money on it.
As a seller, there are some things you can do to move your cash sale along—and to prepare for it so that you get the most out of it when it happens.
With these sell house quickly tips, it might be easier to consider why people would opt for cash-only sales rather than go with traditional home sales. There’s one big downside to a cash-only sale though. In most cash-only sales, you can get thousands less than the fair market rate.
This can be because an investor who buys houses for cash is counting on making all the renovations and repairs, and that’s going to be costly. The less the investor pays for the house, the more profit can be realized once it’s fixed up and back on the market.
Another reason people might shy away from selling their home for cash might be that they’re trying to sell their home without the help of a real estate agent, and they don’t know who buys houses for cash.
It might be more comfortable for some sellers to find a traditional buyer on their own and wait while their buyer gets a mortgage loan. The escrow process is longer this way, but for some people, it’s worth the wait.