How To Sell A Home Fast In A Slow Market

Selling a house quickly in the present real estate market has become a very difficult task for home sellers. It is very common now for homes listed for sale to stay on the market for 90 days or more, even after the seller lowers the asking price.

The sub-prime and adjustable rate market has created a domino effect within the housing industry. More homes are being flooded into the pool of available housing inventory with declining values. This gives any prospective home buyer more options to pick and choose what they will buy and more negotiation power to deal with sellers who may not be in the best position to hold out for the price wanted for the house due to an inability to continue to make payments that have adjusted too high or they are in the midst of a foreclosure.

It’s a buyer’s market and any seller wanting to quickly sell a home cannot just rely on the old traditional methods of listing a home for sale and having an open house and buyers then line up to purchase.

So what can a seller do to ensure the best and quickest chance to sell a home and get the best price? Below are some untraditional methods that should be considered and that have been bringing quick results. Note the emphasis is on non-traditional methods of sale. Sellers must get outside the box and do things differently if they want better results. Remember Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”.

Stage the property. When a home looks like it is occupied and set up with appropriate furniture and etc., it makes the home much more appealing and motivates the prospective buyer to envision how the home would look if they lived there. This makes the setting seem as if they are already in the home. It also encourages an offer. If you can’t stage it yourself there are professional stagers that are readily available and can help you get the most out of the staging experience. The writer of this article has used stagers to assist in selling homes he purchased and sold. The most recent home stager helped him realize a profit of $61,000. Stagers in your area can be found by going to www.stagedhomes.com.

Offer real estate sales agents a commission of 7% if they bring a qualified buyer ready and able to purchase the property at the asking price within a 30 day period. Seven percent may sound like a lot but, if your home moves within 30 days, the commission is more than worth it in this market. The intent is to create motivation for buyer traffic. If an offer comes in less than the asking price you can always negotiate the price as well as the commission since your terms were not met initially. The point is to get offers moving on your property.

Offer seller financing. If your property has substantial equity and you can afford to carry a mortgage on a portion of the property, then assist the buyer to buy the home with seller financing. This can be especially beneficial if, as the seller, you don’t need all the money right now. In addition, it can help with any taxes that would have been paid had you received the money in a lump sum. This can also create an income stream for the in the future. By offering seller financing it expands the buying pool of possible buyers and can move the house much quicker. Of course, one must take precautions to ensure that the buyer is qualified and will be able to make the monthly payments as they come due.

Use government money to sell your home. There is an abundance of free money available for first time home buyers through several federal, state and local government entities for down payment assistance. Check with your city’s local housing administration office. They often have a list or know of a list of buyers who have already been provided with down payment assistance certificates with values up to $50,000 or more. These are used in conjunction with local lenders who provide loans to these home buyers. If you are willing work with the agencies they can provide you with a quick method of possibly selling your home.

Down payment assistance programs can be the only medium needed to sell a home quickly if the seller is willing to cooperate with the government agency or non-profit program providing service. Click www.housingamericans.com/firsttimebuyer for full details.

Roy Landers is real estate attorney and broker with more than twenty years experience. He can be reached at roylanders@housingamericans.com or call 619-296-1393

Myths About First Time Home Buying

Rumors, rumors and myths about the current real estate market being a bad time for home buyers are just that. Rumors and myths. If you listen to the media and those who make their money hawking the doom and destruction of the economy based, in large part based on the subprime and adjustable rate failures, you will buy into the opinions that "right now" is a very bad time to buy real estate.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Its a bad time to buy real estate any time if you aren't careful and don't understand the market and don't have a game plan when you buy. If you understand a few things about the market and the psychology of the people who make the real estate market tick - buyers and sellers- you can just about predict and do whatever you want to individually. You do have to know reality from the myths.

Right now is a good time to buy real estate if you are in the market for a single family home. Why? Well lets look at the realities.

• Foreclosures are increasing day by day, thus filling the market with an inventory of homes that have declined in value and is forcing banks to sell those properties for pennies on a dollar.
• Several thousand more homes with adjustable rate loans are scheduled to adjust upwards within the next two years flooding the market with even more homes that home owners can't afford to pay the mortgage on and at values less than the money owed on them.
• Large investors that bought hugh mortgage portfolios of subprime loans are losing their shirts, so to speak, and this has an adverse affect on the stock market as well.

Given these facts and others that are too numerous to include in this blog, there is a glut and will be a greater glut of homes on the market for sale. That means more supply. When there is more supply the demanders (home buyers) have more choices about what they are buying and can negotiate for a better deal. What it all boils down to is home buyers are now in control. They can call the shots. That is if they can look beyond the myths that keep so many deserving home buyers from branching out to stick their feet in the waters of the real estate market.

What are these myths?

1. You have to have 15-20% down payment in order to get a home in this market. The truth is there are several options that first time home buyers have that allows them to get into a home with no money down or very little money down - as low as 3% down and that can be gifted from a family member or some other source. There are numerous programs offered through the federal goverment's FHA programs that provide for no down and low down payments and below market interest rates. These can be found at http://www.efanniemae.com/.

2. Without credit you can't buy a home. Of course credit is very important but there are ways to buy a home even without credit. Once again the federal government provides a way if one really wants to buy a home, especially for the first timer. FHA's MyCommunityMortgage provides for 30-40 year fixed rate loans with credit flexibility with up to 100% financing.

3. Down payment help sources are only for low income earners. One more myth. There are several down payment assistance programs that help with down payments for home buyers regardless of their income level. In fact many of these programs don't even require that the home buyer be a first time home buyer (defined as a home buyer who hasn't purchased a home within the last three years). Some non-profit agencies have hundreds of thousands of dollars that they are providing to home buyers to assist them with down payment money. Nonprofit agencies such as the Nehemiah Corporation provide $25,000 or more down payment assistance for home buyers needing assistance. Check them out at http://www.nehemiahcorporation.org/.

Don't let the myths about home buying in the present market discourage you from taking advantage of what in truth is a real estate boom for the home buying market.

Contact us for more information about down payment assistance for the home buyer at http://www.housingamericans.com/ or email roylanders@housingamericans.com with any questions.