Questions to Ask Before Selling a House
Are you thinking about selling your house? That can lead to one of the most exciting processes in life. It can also come with some baggage. If you’re not quite ready to pull the trigger, knowing the key questions can help you prepare. These are all questions you need to be able to answer before you start moving to sell your home.
How Much Does It Cost to Sell a House?
Generally, when you think about selling a house, you think about getting a bunch of money. It might go right back into the next house, but it’s counterintuitive to think about how much it will cost to complete the sale. Despite the fact that most home sellers come out ahead, there are out-of-pocket costs required to complete the sale.
Those costs can include hiring a realtor, getting the house listed, staging, getting professional photos, repairs, upgrades, and closing costs. All of those are to say nothing of the time you’ll have to invest in the process too. There are a lot of forces out there that will nickel and dime you as you try to complete a sale. It’s important to know how hard that will hit your wallet before you commit.
How Much Time Can I Afford?
There have been cases of houses being listed and purchased within hours. There are also houses that have been on the market for years and counting. The simple truth is that no one can predict how long it will take for your house to sell. It will depend on market conditions, the house itself, buyers, lenders, and countless other factors.
You need to know your timetable at the start. If you’re in a hurry, you might have to make compromises to sell the house on schedule. Sometimes this means lowering the asking price. Sometimes it means spending more on trying to promote and close the deal. Sometimes it means finding entirely different methods to getting your house sold.
How Valuable Is My House?
It’s easy to take the lazy way out on this. You might get on Zillow and look at houses similar to yours and see how much their listings are. However, this won’t really give you a good idea of the value of your home.
What repairs would a new buyer care about? How is your neighborhood? How long can you wait to try to sell the house for as much as possible? These things can all change the value of your home. In many cases, external factors will make the true value of the home less than you’re inclined to assume. That’s an optimism bias that tricks all of us at some point.
What About Upgrades?
Upgrading a house just to sell it is a complicated prospect. There are upgrades that generally raise the value of the home, but you can’t always sell the home for the price you want. That turns upgrades into a risk prospect, and you have to assess that risk before you spend money on them. More often than not, upgrades can help you sell the house a little faster, but the final price won’t necessarily be raised by more than you invest in the upgrades.
Am I Ready for This?
Sometimes, selling your house isn’t really up to you. You have to move, or life otherwise throws a wrench at you. In those cases, you don’t really get to ask this question and see if you’re ready. Instead, you have to charge ahead.
When you do have the chance to see if you really want to sell, you can assess all of the questions listed above. You can make sure that you are really ready to go through this process. Parts of it can be enjoyable, but there are also headaches.
There’s a bit of good news hiding under all of these questions. Selling your house can be simplified to a degree that will shock you. We Buy Houses Oklahoma streamlines the sales process. All you have to do is ask for an offer. You are guaranteed to get a cash offer on your home, and it’s a no-obligation offer. If you like the offer, you complete the sale. If not, you can still go through the traditional process. Contact us today to see how much your home may be worth.