Anyone familiar with the process of selling a house understands that it is a lengthy endeavor. What you may not know is why a home sale takes so long to complete. Some factors are entirely out of your control, but others should be considered to help you sell your house faster. Here are five great reasons why selling a house is notorious for being a time-consuming venture!
Selling Your House Isn’t Quick
If you are hoping to sell your house, then quick and fast are probably what you’re hoping for. Unfortunately, selling your house is anything but a short transaction. From start to finish, it can easily take several months to sell your Indianapolis home. In the last few years, homes would stay on the market for well over 100 days on average, but this number dropped to less than 70 in 2018.
Even if your house is on the market for just 70 days, that’s still more than two months that you’ll be stuck in a holding period. This doesn’t even include any time you spend preparing the house for sale and the lengthy steps of closing. While there are several factors that lengthen the process of selling your house that you cannot control, there are other things that you can influence to make a quicker sale.
Not Enough Exposure
One of those factors you can change is a lack of exposure to your home. This has two parts to it, the first one being that finding a suitable buyer for your home is very unlikely when there are fewer people that know about it. Increasing the number of people who know that you are selling your house will naturally give you a better chance to sell because you have more opportunities.
The other part of exposure is making sure that you are focusing and highlighting the important features of your home.
It is one thing for buyers to know that you are selling your house, but that knowledge isn’t enough if you don’t supplement it with photos, details, and quirks of your house. This is particularly important if you want to reach buyers that currently live far away. A potential buyer that lives several hours away is much more likely to make the trip if they know more about what your house actually has to offer.
Unreasonable Perspective
Another time killer is having the wrong perspective as a seller, or rather, the lack thereof. With the personal attachment you’ll feel to your house, you can easily hold yourself back by refusing to be realistic. This can lead to you overvaluing your home, which would close you off to any opportunities of a sale for slightly less money.
Understand where your buyer is coming from and how you can help them make this massive transition without sacrificing too much for yourself. If you’re really dedicated to making a sale, you also need to declutter and remove any personal flair you’ve added to the home. When buyers want to look at a home, they want to see an inviting yet vacant dwelling they could call their own.
Poor Timing
The time of year that you decide to sell can also impact how long it takes. As a general rule, homes tend to sell faster when they are listed during warm months with respect to the location they are in. This does mean that spring and summer tend to be great times to try and sell a house Indianapolis.
You can still sell during fall and winter, but homes tend to stay on the market for a few weeks longer during these months. You should also try to keep in mind the status of the local housing market. If homes in your neighborhood are selling fast or slow, those trends will also likely apply to your ability to sell your house.
Closing is Filled With Hiccups
Once you finally find a buyer and accept an offer, the transaction is still not finished. At this point, house closing begins. During this time, your buyer will have an inspection and appraisal done. As a seller, you will need to search your title and add insurance for it. Your buyer will also need to go through the process of getting a loan (and all the documentation that accompanies it) and obtaining homeowners insurance.
Once all of this is completed and you’ve actually been paid, you can do a final walkthrough of the house and handover the keys. While that may not sound like much, the amount of time required to get approval for a loan will take several weeks by itself. This is often the biggest hangup associated with closing, but you can also do your part as a seller by ensuring that you fulfill all of your obligations in a timely manner.
Trying to Sell the Wrong Way
There are multiple ways to try and sell a house, but they are not all equally effective. The conventional method of selling a house involves listing on the open market with a real estate agent. Unfortunately, this is a very untimely way of selling a house because it involves multiple bottlenecks that slow the process. Between finding a real estate agent, searching for a good offer, and waiting for loan approval, you can easily lose months just waiting for a sale.
You can actually sell your house fast if you sell it directly to a cash home buyer. Unlike regular home buyers, a cash house buyer does not need financing from a lender. This means that the biggest problem with closing is eliminated, but so to are your needs of finding a real estate agent and looking for an offer. What this means is an ultra fast transaction that puts the time it takes most people to sell their house to shame.
Picking a Fast Method for Selling Your House
There’s no question that you want fast if you’re looking to sell a house in Indianapolis. This isn’t always practical because some factors are entirely out of your control. A few things that you can impact to quicken a house sale include increasing exposure, having a reasonable perspective, listing during warm months of the year, and being well prepared for closing. Alternatively, you can skip the process entirely by selling directly to a cash home buyer!
If you’re looking to sell a house in Indianapolis for fast cash, then get in touch with us at Ben Buys Indy Homes! We are a local business that can offer you fast cash without any strings attached. The process of selling a home is extremely stressful and can take months that you can’t afford to waste. Save yourself the hassle and see what we can offer for your Indianapolis home!
