It may be due to a career change, a job loss, divorce, or health problems,
but the day may come when you have to sell your home—quickly. If it occurs in
the kind of real estate market we’re facing today, you’ve got problems.
“If I was in a situation where I had to sell my house next month, I’d know
exactly what to do,” says Tawny Stanton, a Realtor with the Schwartz-Stanton
Group in Lake Tahoe, Calif. “I’d slash the price so that anyone with even a
little interest would have to come see it. It would hurt, but you do what you
have to do.”
Here are some tips to keep in mind when you absolutely must get that property
in someone else’s name fast.
The big push. The best way to sell in a challenging environment with
tons of properties competing for too few buyers comes down to chopping your
profits to the bare minimum, if possible. In a more balanced market, a weekend
spent painting, planting, fixing up the yard, etc. could make a big difference
on a quick sale. But when there are five other homes for sale on your street,
your best friend is a skilled, honest real estate agent.
“You want someone who can run an accurate market analysis showing comparable
sales for the last six months and who can help you price your property
accordingly,” says Alex Harb, an Orlando, Fla., real estate agent. “You want to
be the absolute best buy in the neighborhood.”
Play for time. Need to sell in six weeks? Take a tip from retailers
and drop your price over time. Start with a 10% or 15% discount from what the
comparables indicate your price should be, then take off another 5% to 10% each
week until you’ve hit your maximum.
Avoid the cash4houses scammers. They come in and offer you a sale with
guaranteed cash in hand in 10 days or less, in exchange for about 40% off the
price of your property. They’re an absolute last resort.
Clean up; it couldn’t hurt. If the house is a mess, the yard is a
jungle, and the real estate agent is telling buyers you’re looking for a short
escrow, you’re starting to reek of desperation, and buyers get nervous, greedy,
or both. “If Realtors will be showing the property when you’re away, make sure
the beds are made, the kitchen’s clean, you’ve picked up after the dog outside,
and the cat boxes have been changed,” says Harb. “Little things mean a lot. You
want to make people feel they could easily move in.”
Why are you selling? A buyer may want to know why you need to get out
of town so quickly. If a buyer learns it’s because of a divorce or some other
emotionally difficult circumstance, he or she may be a little leery about the
place. The response when asked this question is to say, “I have a new
opportunity in another city.” Such an answer promotes hope and progress, and
hopefully a sale.
And if you really are moving because of a new job and if your status is high
enough in the company, you could see if the firm will buy your house at the
comparable market rate, a fairly common executive perk in the not-so-distant
past.
Mortgage-bank me. If you can live without the proceeds from the sale,
you can consider a seller-financing deal. This is where you “take back” a
private mortgage, under which the buyer makes monthly payments to you, and if he
or she fails, you have the right to foreclose just like a bank. This can help
buyers who may have problems qualifying under current loan conditions, and it’s
also well suited for dealing with a close friend or family member to whom you
feel comfortable loaning. The title is given to the buyer, who has the right to
refinance into a conventional loan when he or she chooses, which would pay off
your private mortgage.
