THE BOTTOM LINE OF SELLING YOUR HOUSE

Earlier, we mentioned that the financial part of selling your house includes more than just the sale price. That's because you also need to account for your expenses, which can be considerable. Home sellers become aware of this by the end of the process, but the ones doing it for the first time rarely include these things in their calculations when formulating a plan to sell.

Common Expenses for Selling Your House by Realty

• Repairs and updates (like painting and landscaping) to prepare the home to be listed
• Services (cleaning, home staging, pest control, etc.)
• Additional repairs or seller concessions following the home inspection
• Realtor commissions
• Title insurance
• Closing costs (other fees, premiums and taxes)

These items usually combine to equal about 15 percent of the sale price of your home. If the amount of repairs/updates/concessions is minimal, that number could be around 10 percent. In other cases, it could be as high as 20 percent. Regardless, this needs to be subtracted from the sale price in order to estimate your financial net return (profit).

If you want to be really thorough, you should also consider whether your mortgage, home insurance and property taxes are likely to be lower in the next place you'll live. If so, then every extra month you stay in the old home is costing you money in those categories.

Hurst Home Buyers Comparison

We've already established that the option to sell your house to Hurst Home Buyers (or any cash buyer) is far superior in the time, stress and physical exertion categories. So, how does it stack up financially?

The answer is that it depends on the house. That may sound evasive, but you have to remember that all homes don't present equal profit opportunities for professional home buyers. The closer a home is to being the nicest one on the block, the more below market value a cash buyer would need to offer you in order to turn a profit.

Start by looking online at homes that have recently sold in your area and try to estimate what your asking price through a realtor would likely be. This is only going to work if you can be honest with yourself. Don't just look at places with similarities in square footage, bedrooms and baths. You need to also look carefully at the photos (inside and out) along with the lot size to see if a home really is similar to yours.

Once you have that projected sales price in mind, take 15 percent of that number and subtract it from the total to get your estimated profit. As mentioned before, some homes will be closer to 10 percent, while others may be around 20 percent. The more you know (or are willing to admit) about your home, the closer you can get to an accurate number.

Then it becomes a matter of simple math and answering the question, "How much profit would I be willing to sacrifice in order to get a fast, no-stress sale?"

How a cash offer affects your decision

Let's say you estimate that you can sell your house for about $300,000 on the market. Then subtract 15 percent ($45,000) for all the expenses from updates, repairs, concessions, commissions, title insurance, taxes and fees, and you get a projected profit of $255,000. (Your house could also sell for less than $300,000 on the market, which would reduce this profit.)

If you request an offer from a cash buyer, and he says he'll pay you $250,000 for the place "as is" and with no closing costs (there are also no commissions if neither of you has hired a realtor), then his offer is basically equal to your projected profit (and will happen much faster and with less stress). To some people, this scenario would be a no-brainer to take the $250,000 and eliminate any possibility of a long, drawn-out sales process.

So, here's the important question. If you consider the difference between your projected profit and the cash buyer's offer to be a "convenience fee" for your reduced time and stress, then how big must that gap get for the lower offer to no longer be worthwhile? In other words, how much extra money would tip the scales and make listing the house on the market worth all the inconvenience it brings?
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That answer will be different for everyone, depending on their personal circumstances (including prior experiences with selling houses). And the more you really need to sell your house quickly, the larger of a gap you're likely to accept.

A cash offer may be right for you

Your home doesn't need to be distressed to be a good prospect for Hurst Home Buyers. There are cases where a well-maintained home in a nice neighborhood might actually get a better deal from us - all things considered - than from the open market. And there are certainly homes in that same neighborhood that would be better off listing through a realtor. You just need to ask the right questions to know which is the right option for you. That's where we come in.

The Hurst Home Buyers way

We're willing to talk you through these steps and show you what similar houses in your area have sold for, so that you can get a reasonable estimation of the profit you'd make by going through a realtor. Then we'll take a look at your home and give you our offer.

If it's obvious before we even sit down to crunch the numbers that we won't be able to compete with what you'd likely get on the open market, we'll tell you. But if you say that time is a really important factor to you, and we think we can get within $20,000 of your projected profit, we'll run the numbers and see what we can offer.

From that point, it's your choice. But we're willing to help you do some of the research necessary to make an informed decision, even if that means you ultimately choose to sell your house to someone else.

Yes, we're in business to make money, just like everyone else. But we want to make money by helping others to reach their goals, too - not by deceiving people and taking money they could've used for any number of important things.
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If you want to know more about the best way to sell your house, please give us a call at 817-934-1318 or fill out the form below. We'd love to work with you!

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