In this post, let’s explore how you can sell your house fast.
Whether you have a residential, commercial, block of flats or short lease properties the following routes apply to all.
Here are some of the reasons you maybe thinking of selling your house fast:
- You may have a house you need to sell to move forward in your life, you may have a vacant house that is costing thousands in mortgage payments.
- Hate the idea of being a landlord? You don’t want to complicate your life with the responsibility of property maintenance and financial stress.
- You’re tired of unreliable and unqualified buyers or low offers.
- Unable to sell at the right price because of repairs needed to your property or unmortgageable property.
- You are in negative equity and unable to sell at the current market value.
You may not realise but there are multiple routes to selling your house:
Route #1: Traditional Route (Estate Agents)
Route #2: Cash Sale
Route #3: Delayed Sale
Route #4: Joint Venture
The most common mistake sellers make regardless of if you have equity or are underwater on your mortgage is enlisting the services of an estate agent.
Route #1 – Traditional Route (Estate Agents)
This is NOT the fastest way to sell your house.
“In fact, it’s like giving money away. When time is of the essence, each day that passes is costing you money. Add this cost to the commission you will pay to your estate agent and you have yourself an unhappy ending to an already stressful scenario.”
The traditional way to sell your property is using Estates Agents, who place a board outside for your house and market your property to send prospective buyers to your house.
If the sale completes you pay the Estate Agents a commission of up to 3% of the sales price and you move out.
The average time a property is on the market in the UK is 4 months and the average time to for conveyancing is 2 months (provided there are no unexpected delays). This was before the pandemic!
So Why is the Estate Agency route so slow?
The reason why it’s slow is because of the many components in the traditional process. Below is based on a very optimistic sales process of 4 months for appointing an Estate Agent and a further 2 months for completion of the sale.
The Major Risks with Selling using Estate Agents
Most sellers do not realize that selling their house using the traditional route has many risks. Here are 10 things that can go wrong using the traditional route:
- Your house has been overvalued and you are not getting many viewings.
- Good money spent after bad money waiting for a unicorn to show up with bags of money so you and your family can finally move on.
- You are unable to keep appointments for the viewing and lose buyers’ interest.
- You have a buyer that wasn’t able to qualify for a mortgage and has wasted months tieing up your property under contract. This is called lost opportunity and you have an estate agent that doesn’t know what they’re doing and they have you tied up in a contract that is doing nothing but costing you money by the day.
- You have to drop the price of your house as it doesn’t sell for months.
- The buyer’s mortgage company down values your property and the sale collapses.
- Solicitors are taking too long to complete all the paperwork.
- Your buyer’s chain is broken and you are unable to move to your next home.
- You are able to move to your new home, but your house hasn’t sold and you now have two mortgages to pay.
Route #2 – Cash Sale
Sell Your House For Cash In As Little As 14 Days.
“Selling your property to a cash buyer has many advantages over the traditional route. Typically a cash buyer is a property company, such as an investment company that has the financial ability to buy properties cash (without needing to arrange mortgages). Such property companies use their own solicitors who know that time very important and completion must occur with days rather than months.”
For a Cash buyer they will expect a discount of around 25% of the market value.
However, this is not as daunting as it seems as you maybe paying this amount anyway using the traditional route. Also, by selling to cash buyer you can avoid even the costs of the repairs if required and sometimes your legal fees will be paid for you.
For a Cash buyer they will expect a discount of around 25% of the market value. However, this is not as daunting as it seems as you maybe paying this amount anyway using the traditional route. Also, by selling to cash buyer you can avoid even the costs of the repairs if required and sometimes your legal fees will be paid for you.
This chart illustrates a Traditional sale for a price of £200,000 on the market and completed for 6 months compared to a Cash sale for a price of £150,000 on the market and completed within 2 weeks.
The downside to selling your property for cash is that you will be expected to discount your home in order to make it more attractively priced to the cash buying company.
The amount of discount that you normally need to give is around 25% of the market value.
If your property doesn’t have enough equity, there’s only so much you can reduce with the price. To sell to a cash buyer they would normally require a discount of at least 25% in the current market. Therefore, not every seller is in a position to reduce the price for an immediate 25% reduced sale. If you do have sufficient equity in the property you may not want to forego such a large equity position.
Therefore, if you do not have enough equity for a cash sale or you can wait to achieve the full market value then you must consider the DELAYED SALE ROUTE.
Route #3 – Delayed Sale
This route is the best of both worlds.
“Using this route you will be able to get full market value of the property, you will be able to move out of your home immediately and your mortgage payment will be paid in full. A delayed sale is an effective tool for helping sellers move on with their lives within days or weeks, which is much quicker than an estate agent.”
Why Use a Delayed Sale?
Let us assume that you have a property that you need to sell very quickly. If you sell through an estate agent in today’s market, it is extremely unpredictable and there is often an oversupply of properties in the area or sellers are reluctant to sell their property after seeing its price fall since the highs of 2007. This means that to get near to your asking price your property could be on the market for 6 – 12 months without being sold.
In the meantime, the agent that you have instructed will be advising you to keep reducing the price to create interest.
Meanwhile your property value could be declining in the current market as the months roll by!
How Delayed Sales Work:
Route #4 – Joint Venture Sale
This option is a combination of a cash offer and delayed sale.
“We agree a minimum price you are happy to accept on your property upon completion and we’ll give you a percentage of any profits made above this agreed amount.”
We start renovation work to the property and once complete we will jointly sell the property. You will share a percentage of the renovation property profits with us.
A joint sale option is an effective method for helping sellers secure a solution on their property within days or weeks, which is much quicker than waiting for an estate agent to secure a property sale.
Why Use A Joint Sale Option?
Your property may have been on the market for a considerable amount of time and is yet to be sold. It may require refurbishment works and you may not have funds to carry them out .
Furthermore, you could be time-restricted due to work or other commitments. Meanwhile, your property value could be declining in the current market.
How Joint Sale Option Work:
The joint sale option is ideal if your property can benefit from renovations and you need to sell your property quickly
Which is the Sell your House Fast routes is best for you?
Below is the comparison of all three routes. As you can see the two quickest routes are the Cash Buyer which will provide the quickest physical sale and Delayed Sale or Joint Sale Option will provide the fastest way full market value. The traditional route is the slowest method.
How can we help you?
If you have a property whether it is a residential, commercial, block of flats or short lease property, we will be delighted to speak to you and the route available for your property.
Submit your property on: www.DirectPropertyBuyer.co.uk and we will contact you within 24 hours to
discuss solutions for your property.