There are different ways to sell your house. You can sell with a real estate agent, sell it yourself, sell to an IBuyer, or sell to an investor.  There are pros and cons with each of those 3 choices.

Please know that you have options.  Below are the pros and cons of each choice for you to consider when it comes to selling yours or your loved one’s house.

Real Estate Agent and the MLS

Pros:

• Access to the Multiple Listing System (known as MLS)
• A skilled agent will help you to come up with an accurate price that will get your home sold as quickly as possible.
• Can sell your house at the going market price
• A good agent will walk you through and support you at each stage of the sales process.
• An expert agent will negotiate strongly to get you the best price.
• Agents have a fiduciary duty to you.  By law, they must act in the best interest of their clients by loyalty, confidential, and honesty
• MLS is considered retail and you get the most money out of your house.
• You don’t have to do anything besides making your house presentable and allow showings.
• All buyers that come through your home will be pre-qualified by a lender to buy your home.

Cons:

• Agents have commissions
• Depending on your market, it can take a little longer to sell than an instant offer
• Your house will generally need to be in sellable condition to garner the maximum price or close to it. This means that it must be fairly up-to-date and in livable condition.
• There can be many showings and people coming in and out of your house.

Who Is This Best For?

Selling with a real estate agent is a good option for you if you are not in a time crunch to sell and want to sell for full market price. This is a good option if you’re able to wait for a buyer to make a full market price offer and don’t have the time to sell it yourself.  Interview 3 agents to sell your home and gain insight from each interview, in the end, you’ll know who you will want to sell your home.

Sell It Yourself (For Sale By Owner):

Pros:

• You can take a hands-on role and negotiate on your own behalf.
• If you’re detail-oriented enough and have the time to handle the intricacies of real estate, you will save thousands of dollars.
• There are websites where you can post your property for maximum exposure such as Zillow, MLSmyHome, Craigslist, and Fizber.

Cons:

• Statistically, for-sale-by-owner homes sell for less than those sold with the help of an agent and you still will pay commissions.
• You must be detail-oriented to handle the intricacies of real estate transactions.
• You will, ideally, remain in control throughout the entire process making it a full-time job.
• You will need to come up with an accurate price that would be attractive to buyers. Zillow is known to be highly inaccurate in many areas.
• You’ll need to spend money to make repairs or stage the house to give it the best chance at receiving an offer.
• You will need to continue to pay for the house’s upkeep. That includes paying for utilities, maintenance, and home insurance. If the property is vacant, you will need to find a way to secure it seasonal weather threats as well as against vandals, thieves, squatters, and other intruders.
• Routine elements of the sales process can upset you as the seller because of any emotional investment in the property.
• Here’s that catch-22 again: If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of people coming in-and-out of your house for showings. The downside: you’ll have tons of people walking in-and-out of your house at all hours that are not qualified buyers, which can get really old really fast
• You will get a lot of calls from unqualified buyers that can’t even afford the home.

Who Is This Best For?

This option is best for someone who doesn’t need to sell a house quickly and/or has no urgency to be out of the house. It is also best for someone who is detail-oriented, not emotionally invested in the house, and who has a strong comfort level with negotiation, handling contracts and financials.  This option is also good if you have a financial reserve that will cover your day-to-day living expenses plus the costs of maintaining the house such as a mortgage, insurance, taxes, utilities, and maintenance.

Selling to An Investor or wholesaler or IBUYER (opendoor etc)

These are typical unlicensed entrepreneurs that want a piece of the pie.  There are some situations where this can be a great win-win but typically you will want to explore all of your options to make sure you get the most money for your home.

Pros:

• They buy houses as-is in any condition.
• You will receive an all-cash offer within 24 hours or so.
• They can complete the entire transaction from offer to closing in 30 days or less.
• They will not ask you to spend any money on making repairs or even cleaning out the house.
• You won’t have to worry about tons of people walking in-and-out of your house.

Cons:

• Unfortunately, there are a lot of scammers in the marketplace who misrepresent themselves and what they’re able to do.
• You will be selling the property at a discount to the market price, many times leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table
• There’s no barrier to entry, so anyone can decide to hang a shingle and call themselves an investor.
• They are unlicensed individuals who can make any claim they want.
• You may get a few comps to your house most likely on the lower end of the scale, making you believe your house is not as valuable as it is.
• Although investors take as is, IBUYERS still deduct expenses in an inspection period.
• Wholesalers and investors can put an offer in with the intention to wholesale or assign to an investor.  They hold the property up to see if they can wholesale it to a flipper or investor and make a wholesale fee.  The problem is, is sometimes the fee can be $10,15, 20 +thousand dollars when a real estate agent wouldn’t even charge you that money.
• You will pay for convenience basically going with this type of sale.

Who Is This Best For?

Selling a house to an investor is best for someone who is in time and/or money crunch and needs to sell a house fast with little hassle and stress. It is a great option for you if you don’t want to, or cannot pay for repairs, cleaning, and upkeep of a property. This is also a great option if you need to sell in days or weeks vs. months.