According to a recent study, about one-third of home sales have been all-cash sales over the last couple of years. With the real estate market being as red-hot as it has been, many buyers have used all-cash offers to increase their chances of being able to buy homes.
With this in mind, you might be thinking, “I can sell my home for cash easily,” right now. But you should know that you will need to take the right approach to sell a home for cash if you want to do it successfully.
If you’re interested in trying to get cash for a house when selling it, you’ll need to do everything from price your home right to be open to selling your house to a company that specializes in scooping up homes for cash.
Here are the different steps you’ll need to take when you find yourself saying, “I’m interested in selling my home for cash.”
Begin by Figuring Out What Your Home Is Worth
Before you even think about selling a house for cash, you will want to look into what it’s actually worth. Otherwise, you might end up agreeing to sell your home for so much less than it’s worth.
These days, it’s never been easier to find out how much your house is worth. You should be able to get some rough estimates as to what it might be worth by poking around online.
You can also check to see what similar homes in your area have sold for in recent weeks and even months. This should give you a much better idea of what the value of your home is right now.
Determine If You Want to Do Anything to Increase Your Home’s Value
Any time you sell a house, whether for cash or not, you should always try to squeeze every last dollar out of it that you can. One way you can do this is by making improvements to your home prior to putting it up for sale.
If you do something as simple as improving your home’s curb appeal, it could help you make so much more money on your home when selling it. This will be true both when you’re selling your house to someone who is going to be financing it and when you’re selling it to someone who is going to pay cash for it.
At the same time, it might not always make sense to spend money improving your home when selling it for cash. You will also have the option to sell it as-is if you would like so that you don’t have to worry about investing money into a house that you won’t even own soon.
Search for Cash Home Buyers in Your Area
If you aren’t in a huge hurry to sell your home, you can stick a “FOR SALE BY OWNER” sign in the front yard and see if you’re able to collect any cash offers by doing it. Depending on where you live, you might be able to drum up some interest in your home yourself and sell it for cash.
But more often than not, it’s going to take you entirely too long to sell a house for cash in this way. You won’t be able to sell a house fast all the time when you’re attempting to sell it yourself.
Instead, you might want to search for cash home buyers in your area and see what they would be willing to pay for your house. Google “sell my home for cash” and you should come across at least a few companies that will pay cash for your house.
Obtain Offers From Cash Home Buyers
Once you have a list of local cash home buyers, you should do your research on each of them. Ideally, you will only want to get offers from experienced companies that have been buying homes in your area for cash a lot over the last few years.
From there, it should be simple enough for you to secure offers from each of them. You can fill out a form on each of their websites that will ask you for some basic information about your home. After you’re done doing it, cash home buyers will begin sending offers your way within just a day or so.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea at all to get your hands on as many offers as you can. It’ll put you in the perfect position to see which one will enable you to make the most money possible when you sell a house.
Look at the Terms Attached to Offers From Cash Home Buyers
After you fill out the forms provided to you on the websites for cash home buyers, you should start to see the offers come pouring in almost right away. Most cash home buyers are going to be more than happy to make you a fair offer for your home within 24 hours.
Your first instinct will be to look at how much different cash home buyers offer you for your house. But you should also dig a little bit deeper and check out the terms that are attached to the offers from these buyers.
For example, you will want to check to see:
- If a cash home buyer will require you to go through the home inspection process
- How quickly a cash home buyer will want to close on your home if you accept their offer
- When you can expect to get paid in cash for your home once you close on it
Some homeowners will overlook these types of terms and come to regret it later. You should make sure that you look at them so that you’re able to select the offer that will make the most sense for you.
Compare the Offers You Get From Cash Home Buyers
Within just a few days, you should hear back from each of the cash home buyers that you contacted initially. You should then be able to sit down with each of their offers so that you can compare them.
You will obviously want to see how much cash they’re each willing to give you for your home. But outside of doing that, you should also compare the terms that we just talked about from one offer to the next.
One cash home buyer might make a larger offer than all the others, but they might also let you know that they would like to perform a home inspection before your deal with them goes through. This might not be the best option for you if you know that there are issues with your home that will end up on a home inspection report.
In this case, it might make more sense to work with a cash home buyer that is going to pay you a little less for your home without subjecting you to a home inspection. It’ll help you sell a home fast without having to be concerned about what problems might pop up on a home inspection report.
Select the Best Offer From a Cash Home Buyer
After reviewing each of the cash offers that you receive for your home and comparing them, there should be one offer that stands tall above all the rest. That will be the offer that you will ultimately want to accept.
You should reach back out to the cash home buyer who made this offer and let them know that you will be taking them up on it. They will then be able to explain the rest of the process that you will have to go through in order to collect cash for your home.
Pick a Closing Date for Selling a Home for Cash
The beauty of selling a house to a cash home buyer is that it isn’t going to take you very long to do it. It typically takes about 70 days on average from listing a home to closing on it when you sell it in the traditional way. But when you sell a house to a cash home buyer, you might be able to do it within just a week or two.
Because of this, you will need to be ready to pick a closing date sooner rather than later. You should think about when you would like this closing date to be before you formally accept an offer from a cash home buyer.
You should also make sure that you realize that you hold a lot of the power when selling a house for cash. You’ll have plenty of flexibility when it comes to how long you would like to wait to close on your home when you sell it for cash.
Start Packing Up Your Home in Anticipation of Selling It for Cash
Regardless of when you would like to close on the sale of your home, you will need to start packing all your things up ASAP. You aren’t going to have too much time to get all your belongings together so that you can move them out of your house.
In a perfect world, you might actually want to start packing up your house before you even accept an offer from a cash home buyer. You aren’t going to need to worry about how your home looks since you won’t have people coming through it to check it out. You should take advantage of this by beginning to pack up as soon as you can prior to accepting a cash offer for your home.
By doing this, you’ll guarantee that you’re all ready to go once your closing day arrives. You won’t have to scramble around trying to get things done so that you close on your home and move out of it.
Close on the Cash Sale of Your Home and Move Out of It
Moving can be very stressful for a wide range of different reasons. Closing on a home, in particular, can stress people out and cause them to suffer from anxiety both in the days leading up to it and in the days that follow.
Another great thing about selling a house for cash to a cash home buyer is that closing will be so much simpler than it usually is. You won’t have to fill out as many forms, and you also won’t need to be concerned about a buyer’s financing falling through at the 11th hour.
As long as you work with a reputable cash home buyer, they’ll make the closing process so quick and painless. It’ll help you get your hands on the cash that you’ve been waiting for, and it’ll also give you more than enough time to move out of your home so that a cash home buyer can take possession of it from you.
Stop Saying, “I Wish I Could Sell My Home for Cash,” and Do It
If you haven’t ever sold a house for cash, you might initially be a little apprehensive about doing it. This is perfectly natural.
But once you’ve decided, “I want to sell my home for cash,” we’re the cash home buyer that will make it easy on you from beginning to end. We’ll provide you with a no-strings-attached offer for your home that is more than fair, and we’ll also help you close on the sale of your home in no time at all.
Do you have questions about how selling a home for cash works? Contact us now to get answers to them.