There are many factors that impact How do I sell my house fast?. In addition, there are several different aspects to this question to consider. Let’s examine these different considerations further.
First, your definition of ‘fast’ will impact what methods or options will help you achieve your goal related to timing of the sale. Fast, as it relates to the speed of a home sale, is relative in nature. For example: You may consider spending a few weeks interviewing realtors, another couple weeks cleaning and preparing your house for photos, another week getting photos taken and your house listed, accepting an offer after 2-4 weeks, and then closing on the sale 6 weeks later to be a fast sale. Or, for various reasons, there is a much greater sense of urgency and you might feel that anything longer than ASAP or maybe a few weeks is not fast enough. Different people. Different situations. Different definitions of ‘fast’.
Second, you definition of ‘sale’ will determine if there are alternative sale strategies that may improve your outcomes. There are different ways of selling a home that one may consider having it ‘sold’. For most, this would mean a complete sale where 100% of the sale price is paid and the title is transferred to the buyer at the closing (a traditional sale). However, there are other ways one may sell and be satisfied without meeting these conditions. For example, what if it isn’t in your best financial or tax interest to receive all of the income from the sale right when you sell? There are options, such as selling via installment sale, that can provide creative options for deferring all or part of the income from the sale over multiple or many years. This can take the form of a land contract in Michigan or use a promissory note and mortgage. In these scenarios, the full purchase price isn’t complete until sometime down the road (could be months or decades!) and the deed may or may not be transferred upon your initial sale/closing. In certain situations, one may consider selling subject to their existing mortgage in which case their loan/mortgage is still in place after closing but being paid by another party. As you can see, there are a variety of reasons why these different options might be considered.
Third, the condition of your house and property may guide your decision-making process. Is your home a recent build, in ‘like new’ condition, and up to code? Or is it old, run down, not up to code, and needing significant repairs?
Fourth, the location of your property may be a factor. The location of your property may be on one extreme or the opposite. For example, is your home located in the heart of the most desirable residential neighborhood, a highly desirable location downtown Kalamazoo or Grand Rapids? Or is it located in a very remote location or in a lowland that is flooded? While these may seem extreme, they help to paint a picture of how location can impact your sale. Selling a home in a highly desirable area is probably going to be much easier to do than selling one in a swamp.
Fifth, there may be other constraints or factors related to the sale of the house that can impact your selling options. How do I sell my house fast? This may include:
- Your financial situation.
- Is obtaining cash from your house an urgent need within the next few weeks?
- Active or pending litigation
- Is there a court case preventing you from selling until it is resolved?
- Probate / Estate
- Are you waiting for the probate process to be complete and receive letters of authority from the court to sell the house?
- Did you inherit a property you don’t want and just want to sell it asap?
- Divorce
- Do you need to sell because of divorce?
- Bankruptcy
- Are you being forced to sell? Or are you not permitted to sell because of an active bankruptcy filing?
- Pre-Foreclosure
- Are you behind on payments or facing foreclosure?
- Foreclosure
- Has your house been sold at auction and you have a limited window of time during your redemption period before you are evicted and lose your house?
- Landlord-related
- Do you need to evict tenants before you can sell?
- Do you want to sell with the tenants still renting?
If you fall into the camp of the first scenario described in this article and can afford several months to sell your house, we are going to consider that as ‘not fast’ for the purposes of exploring How do I sell my house fast?
First off, we ought to define the term ‘fast’! To some, going through the traditional home sale. For the purposes of this article, we are assuming that ‘fast’ is being used in reference to be wanting or needing to sell and close on the sale within a 1 month timeframe, which is less than the average timeframe to list and close on the sale of a house on the MLS (multiple listing service). Back to the question of How do I sell my house fast?
It’s completely possible to How do I sell my house fast? with it listed on the MLS (multiple listing service) using a realtor, listing it For Sale By Owner (FSBO), selling through a wholesaler, or selling it directly to a cash buyer. It largely depends on how fast you need to close on the sale, the condition and appeal of your home, and location.
If you are looking for the highest guarantee of the fastest sale (typically closing in as little as 1-2 weeks), a cash house buyer is your best option. A wholesaler may be another good option as they might have a pool of buyers that might be interested as opposed to the cash house buyer who may not have interest or capacity at the time.
It’s also entirely possible to close on the sale of your house within 1 month’s time if listing with a realtor on the MLS or For Sale by Owner (FSBO). How do I sell my house fast? This would require the right combination of things resulting in finding a buyer very quickly who is also able to buy the house without going through the traditional bank loan application process and possibly also reducing the timeline in other ways such as shortening or eliminating the time period for inspections. Your house will have to be priced to sell fast in order to sell fast!