What is the cheapest way to sell your house? If you don’t want to waste your hard-earned equity, you’ll need to think outside the box. Using a realtor and going the traditional route will cost you five to six percent of the selling price.
But other options exist. When you’re ready to discover the less-known ins and outs of selling your home, so you can walk away with more money in your pocket, read on.
Is the Cheapest Way to Sell Your House to Ditch Your Realtor?
If you want to sell your house for the best price, is a realtor necessary? The answer is “yes.” The answer is also “no.”
Sure, you may sell a house without using a real estate agent. The process is called “for sale by owner,” or FSBO. Through this process, you can sell your home and do all the paperwork by yourself.
Unfortunately, gathering the proper documents and learning what it all means can take months of research. And that’s time that, for most folks, can be better spent elsewhere.
The flip side is that a real estate agent might increase the sale price of your home. Agents work for commissions, so they generally want to sell your home for the highest price they can get. They also have access to Multiple Listing Services (MLS).
What you need to understand about MLS is that it’s a regional database of all the properties that owners have put up for sale. Realtors use it to match buyers up with properties that suit their needs. If you don’t put your home up on MLS, far fewer buyers will know your property exists.
That usually translates to a lower sales price for you.
The Mix and Match Solution
If you want to get creative, you can use the FSBO method, then pay a flat fee to have your home listed on MLS. Then you can hire a discount broker for a lower commission. They usually ask for either a flat fee or a one-to-two percent commission.
This is considered the best of all worlds. You pay less in commission, but you still have a realtor selling your home. That means no time researching paperwork, and you still get more prospective buyers looking at your home.
If You Need to Sell it Quickly
What can you do if you want the highest price, but you need to sell a home as soon as possible? Well, prepare yourself because you won’t get the prices you might receive otherwise. You’ll have to go the route of a “short sale” or also known as “quick house sale“.
Usually, this term refers to selling your home while the mortgage is in the defaulted pre-foreclosure period. But some property investors buy homes up quickly for a discount. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling a house that’s in default.
If you look here, you’ll find Skender-Newton Realty, an agency that also purchases real estate. They’ll give you a cash offer within 96 hours. You’ll find other short-sale and real-estate investors available in your area.
What’s Next?
Now that you better understand the cheapest way to sell your house, what will you do? Will you rely on the traditional, tried-and-true method? Or will you think outside the box and do a little extra legwork to improve your reward?
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