When Should I Sell My house? 6 Questions to Ask Before You Sell
Figuring out when you should sell your house is a complex yet simple answer. There are logical reasons to sell your house, and there are emotional reasons you might desire to sell your house. The one thing to remember is, there are costs and fees associated with you every time you sell your house. This is why it is usually best to logically decide if you want to sell your home. You can have real estate agent commissions, cash buyer discounted purchase price and or convenience fees, title and escrow fees, and moving costs to move you from house to house. Trust me, this can add up, so this is why we encourage you to decide logically when is the right time to sell your house. Below are six questions to ask before selling your home, which you should ask yourself.
Do I Have Enough Equity in my Home to Sell it?
Some real estate markets will allow homeowners to have plenty of equity in their house to sell it, whereas other real estate markets have slow or negative growth making it harder to sell your house. Many property owners do not stay current on their home’s value in order to know if they have enough equity to sell their house. Besides real estate market fluctuations, homeowners can be building equity each time they make a mortgage payment that pays off a little of their principle. Then there are the property owners who own their property outright and have a need to make a move but do they have enough to make a move without going into debt.
Home Much is My Home Worth?
We believe you should constantly be in the know of approximately what your home is worth. You should sign up for automatic home value updates on all of the properties you own. This way you will always have a good idea of what you could sell your house for. A real estate agent would be your best choice once you feel you are ready to sell your house to get a real accurate opinion of the value of your house. The real estate agent can go over all of your forecasted closing costs based on local market norms, which they are seeing based on homes they are selling, and also based on buyers they are helping purchase other homes. This will give you a great idea of what you could walk away from your current house with to use toward the purchase of your next house in the event you are purchasing.
How Much Will it Cost Me to Sell my House?
The housing market will actually impact the cost of selling your house. In a strong seller’s market, a homeowner could expect to pay less as a percentage of the house’s value in fees. Real estate agents do not have to work as hard to sell the home, yet they are working harder to get homes to sell. Also during a seller’s market, sellers are most likely not having to even think about providing seller concessions to help with the buyer’s closing costs. Then escrow and title fees stay the same for the most part. Your real estate agent most likely has an app that they can plug in a few numbers and presto you will have an idea of the costs of selling your home. Then you will have a better idea if you should sell your home now or wait to sell your home.
Can I Make Do Staying in My House ?
There are several logical reasons that you could be thinking about selling your home. You might have a need for more space with a new family member moving in. You might have an aging parent, a kid back from college, a newborn baby, and several other reasons. You might need to even start working from home. There are lots of logical reasons for needing to move, which you might be able to solve while allowing you to stay put.
Some property owners have been able to fix their problems by building an add-on to their house to answer space issues, while others have not been able to, because the house was not designed to allow an add-on, and even others may simply have too much of a house and need to downsize.
In the event you cannot make do with your current house, and you are ready to start the selling process, then you will want to reach out to a licensed real estate agent to get your questions answered about the home selling process. Skilled and well-experienced real estate agents have the tools and resources to help you need when you are selling your house.
Can I Do a Refinance to Fix My Situation?
Sometimes you have too much monthly debt and your first instinct is to think if selling a home is the right answer. The truth sometimes is that selling a house is the right answer. Each property owner has its own unique situations that have unique solutions for them. While others may have the option of refinancing to lower their monthly mortgage payment or getting cash out to remove the high payments on other debt is the answer. Many times the answer is not the refinance but going on a spending diet and pay off some debt. Many real estate agents have seen all kinds of unique situations and they have discovered when possible to change their spending habits and snowball their debt can help a homeowner stay put.
Can I Reduce My Spending to Fix My Situation?
Usually, most people looking at selling a house because they are struggling financially can go on a spending diet and get financially in shape by doing an audit on where their money is going. Lots of times they discover they can go with a way cheaper cellular plan, get rid of cable tv, and even sometimes get rid of their internet and just use their phone as a hot spot for everything they need on the internet. Others have traded their cars in for a smaller low payment car. A few quick changes from a good audit of your monthly debt can help some people free up near a thousand a month.
Summarizing it Up
The above questions to ask yourself are just a starting point for deciding if you should be selling your real estate. In the event the answer is yes, and yes is a good answer too, you should seek the help of a professional real estate agent to do a market analysis prior to selling. This will help you come up with a market value for your property. A good agent will take recent sales of similar properties in your subdivision and look at the conditions from photos stored in the MLS and compare them to the details of your house you are thinking of selling. They will be looking for something similar in square footage and condition to help with a home value report for you. Home selling can be complicated and to get top dollar for your home, typically a real estate agent is recommended. Besides that, their skills in tightening up a contract are important and so is the home selling process. Believe it or not, it can be a very time sucking and encombersome selling experience. The above six questions to ask yourself will get you headed in the right direction.