“Help! I’m Trying To Figure Out How To Sell My House Fast In Sacramento”
7 Tips For Home Sellers to Cash Out is a Sellers Market
If you own a house in Sacramento, Stockton and Modesto and want to sell it quickly, then this blog has 7 tips that will help you sell your house in no time!
Tip #1 – Skip the Conventional Wisdom
There is a lot of noise out there. TV advertising, radio and then you meet with the real estate agents. Slick presentations about a billion dollar logo that they represent that wants to put your house under contract so that you can just sit back and watch the magic.
Seriously, the magic? Selling houses has never been magical and that listing agreement is NOT a promise to sell. It is a promise from you to pay a commission to both the listing agent (the one that plants the sign in your yard) and the buyer’s agent, that eventually brings you the potential buyers.
I encourage people to avoid the knee jerk reaction and do a lot of research, but I understand the pull is hard to resist. Afterall, you can’t make a mistake if you just follow the conventional wisdom of the day and hire a real estate agent. They are licensed and trained professionals and they know what they are doing… right? They have done this a lot so they know the ins and outs. They can guide you through the process because they are the experts.
News flash… experts are often wrong, and very few real estate agents are experts. Have you noticed that the so called experts line up on both sides of an issue and debate. They generally aren’t the ones that have anything at stake and just because they have an opinion and some background does not make them smart. They are people just like you and I and the truth of the matter is that in order for them to be able to wear that moniker, you need to buy into the whole charade.
Real estate, especially residential real estate is an industry that has great marketing. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this blog trying to decide the best way to sell your house. The clamoring for your house and listing is loud, but if you want to look at things from a slightly different perspective that might come with a little less risk, a lot more privacy and a lot less out of pocket expenses, you might want to read on.
Most homeowners have one goal when they say “Sell My House Fast in Sacramento” They want to spend as little money as possible to put the most equity back in their pocket when the sale occurs. They generally understand that the highest sales price is a good thing unless of course that high price means that they had to spend more money than they had to if they’d just sold the house as is which leads me to tip number 2.
Tip #2 – Don’t Fix-It
One of the most time-consuming parts of selling any house is the preparation. It is also one of the reasons that homes don’t get sold as quickly as the seller wants. Fixing a house requires planning and permission. Cities and Counties want to encourage you to fix and update your houses, but they want you to visit the local permit center, submit your drawings and plans and they want to collect your check.
You read that right. Your local building department wants to be paid whether you are replacing a water heater, electrical outlet or upgrading your windows and those renovations need drawings and permits and they require inspections and approvals. They require contractors pulling the permits and they require more inspections.
All of this along with the clean-up that needs to happen before the home can go on the market. While most real estate agents understand what their buyers are looking for, they urge sellers into spending thousands to make those renovations regardless of calculating the return on investment. Unfortunately, the larger the renovation, the larger the price tag and the longer the house is kept off of the market.
Tip #3 – Forget Selling your house in Sacramento Retail
When a home is sold retail it is considered “on the market” (usually listed by an agent) and the prospective buyers are usually called “retail buyers.” That simply means the buyers are looking to buy a home and they require financing, they will want inspections and their lender will have certain conditions that may disqualify your house. Retail buyer usually are buying a house to live in. That is their great opportunity to grab their part of the American Dream and as a result your house is going to be completely vetted with appraisals and inspections.
Unfortunately, retail buyers are notoriously unpredictable and they DON’T buy on the sellers timeline. A better option is to think about selling to a cash home-buying company like mine.
Tip #4 – Disclose Everything
When the HVAC unit was installed and was it permitted? There are disclosures for disclosures and the law requires the seller to disclose anything that may materially impact the value of a house that the buyer is purchasing. Last count in California there were as many as 18 disclosure items with over 75 pages. We buy houses in Sacramento for cash with no inspections, no contingencies and no disclosures. We are not real estate agents or brokers and so we dont require them to protect ourselves from lawsuits and it is common practice that we buy houses in Sacramento without them.
Backed up sewer lines, tree roots under foundations, green water in the pool? We dont care. When the roof was last shingled, how old is the carpet or the age of the original single paned windows? It’s not important. But, when selling to conventional retail buyers, the homeowners that anticipate these questions and have the answers at their fingertips, can usually accelerate the buyer’s timeline and potentially sell their homes faster.
Tip #5 – Rethink The Hiring of an Agent
Real estate agents have earned their reputations. Certainly there are good ones but in balance, the age, condition and location has more to do with what your house is worth than the real estate agent that you hire. In fact, some houses, approximately 40%, do not warrant the additional layer of cost of a real estate agent represents. For certain houses, the evidence suggests that even if you list your house with a real estate agent it will just sith until the listing expires. Do you really have three to six months to play that game?
While an agent may motivated to sell your house and try to get the best price for it, their objective is the sale, never the price. So while your objective may be a certain pricing threshold, that justifies their commission, they could care less. Overpriced houses sit and unless you continue to drop the price the listing will just expire without you ever seeing an offer. It is why their commissions are a fixed percentage. That by the way is the only sale that really matters to them. It is a numbers game and your house is front and center. Once that listing agreement is signed that is really the sale for them because another agent is going to show the house and eventually bring in an offer. Which one? It doesn’t matter to them. They get paid when the house sells, regardless who sells it.
The notion that a listing real estate agent will get in there and aggressively find a buyer is a pipedream. Likewise, myth that the listing agent has the ability to negotiate a better price is also farfetched. After 10 years I can say that not once have I seen that happen and I have been involved in hundreds of transactions. One step further, I can say that I have never been bested by a real estate agent in a negotiation and not once have they presented some counter offer that was accepted giving their clients the upper hand. The stories are sometimes famous for what not to do.
Bypassing an agent and selling directly to a buyer, such as a buyer like Peter Westbrook may help you to sell your house faster.
(We are home buyers and we have cash on hand to buy your house right now)
Tip #6 – Make a decision
Decide which alternative is best for you. Talk to all of the players, then develop and implement your plan. It will set you free.
Tip #7 – Sell Your House to Westbrook REI
It is my experience that homeowners who know that they have a problem house are ready if they can be shown the way. They WANT to sell but when it comes time to make a decision, they have difficulty moving forward because they dont trust the people and the process. If you are really interested in selling your house in Sacramento, Stockton or Modesto fast, then call me. We can move very quickly and I can guarantee to close and put a check in your hands in about a week!