You want to sell your home without all the hassle but you’re nervous to try using an iBuyer. How could you get the best instant home offer using this new service if you don’t know how it works?
We’ve outlined 7 insider iBuying tricks to help you get in the loop and sell your house quickly and conveniently.
iBuying has grown across the country throughout the past five years. Without making a commitment, you can apply online and receive an instant home offer within a day or two. Before you apply, we’ll help you understand what iBuying is and how you can use it to get the best offer for your house.
What iBuyers Want
When you’re ready to sell your home, you can upload information about the house to an iBuyer’s app or website and receive an instant cash offer within 24 hours.
Known as instant offer companies, iBuyers are tech-based real estate investors that buy and sell houses online, streamlining the process for themselves and their customers.
Their services include trading in your house for another house, receiving a fast cash offer, and selling your house as-is, if it meets certain standards. They charge fees for their services, which are slightly higher than realtors’ fees.
Typically, houses valued between $100k – $500k, in middle-class neighborhoods, needing minor updates, are the most likely candidates for successful iBuying transactions.
When selling to an iBuyer, you don’t have to list your home on the market or manage staging the home for showings, as you would with traditional real estate methods.
7 Insider Tricks to Get the Best Offer from an iBuyer
1. Be Upfront with the Buyer
When selling to an iBuyer, build trust with the potential buyer from the beginning and be as clear and honest about your home as possible. The trust you build could lead to a better final offer.
Through the process of selling your home, the buyer will have a professional inspector visit and examine your house. This will uncover any issues with the home’s condition or location, regardless of what you disclosed. In certain states, it’s a legal requirement to disclose certain information about your house, such as hazards, major leaks or structural issues. It’s not worth trying to hide or withhold information that you think could hurt the sale. Withholding itself is an unnecessary risk to take and could ruin trust between the buyer and seller.
2. Do Your Research
Use sites like Redfin, Zillow, Trulia, etc. to see prices similar houses in your area are listed at or have recently sold for. Use this information and be honest with yourself about the amount of repairs or updates your house needs in order to compare to those sold houses.
3. Don’t Settle for the First Offer
Negotiating is a normal part of any real estate transaction. Don’t be afraid to negotiate with anyone who is giving you an offer on your house. The buyer might not be willing to adjust their initial offer, but you won’t know until you ask. In negotiating, you defend your side of the deal and can sell features of the home that you know best.
4. Educate Yourself
Look at similar houses in the area that sold recently and consider hiring an inspector to assess the condition of your home. Once you know whether your house needs repairs, call local professionals to price out what those repairs would cost. Before you agree to an offer, you can determine how much those repairs might affect the value of your house, which could then impact the final price you accept.
5. Know Your Timeline to Sell Your House
How much time do you have before you need to sell your house? If you can manage a longer timeline before having to sell, it will give you flexibility to see a few offers and evaluate the best option. If your timeline is short, you might not have as many options available, leading to fewer offers and a need for you to be flexible on price and concessions. The sooner you start the selling process, the more time you give yourself to find the best offer.
6. Find an Advocate
If, like most people, you aren’t a real estate expert, it helps to find a person or resource that can educate you on all of the available options for selling your house. The real estate industry is changing. With that change comes many alternative ways to sell your house besides the traditional realtor model. There’s also more access to expert real estate information and data about your local market online.
7. Determine Your End Goal
Before you start the sales process, have a clear goal of what you want to achieve by selling your house, as well as the trade-offs you’re willing to deal with to reach that goal. This will guide the decisions you’ll need to make along the way to closing the sale.
Consider whether you need to sell your house quickly and if you’re willing to sacrifice some of the value of the house in order to sell within your timeline. Are you selling the house in order to get out of a tough situation, spend more time with family, or move into a better home? Knowing the main goal makes it easier to be flexible in areas that don’t impact the goal and stay focused on points that are most important to you, while working with potential buyers.
Get the Best Offer from an iBuyer
These 7 insider tricks show the importance of planning, educating yourself, preparing for the sales process, negotiating offers, and sticking to your end goal when selling your house.
With no risk to apply and these tricks outlined, you can have confidence in trying iBuying to get the price you deserve for your home.
Recommended Reading:
https://www.businessinsider.com/negotiating-tricks-to-try-when-selling-your-house-2016-5#-6
https://smartasset.com/mortgage/how-to-choose-the-best-buyer