When you’re ready to sell your home in Lancaster you may be considering listing your home through a traditional real estate agency. Although working with a real estate agent is a popular choice, if you want to sell your home quickly, it may be costing you more time than you realize.
When you have a tight schedule to settle into your new residence, the hours you spend going through a standard real estate agency could be better spent planning, packing, and moving.
In the article, we’ll look at five of the ways selling your home with a real estate agent costs you time:
- Finding a Reputable Agent
- Making Necessary Repairs
- Showing Your Home
- Waiting for a Sale
- Closing
After reading, you’ll have a better idea of the real estate sales process and how working with an agent can be more time-consuming than you first think.
1. Finding a Reputable Agent
The first hidden way selling your Lancaster home through a real estate agency costs you time is actually the process of finding an agent to begin with.
While there are many reputable real estate agents in the Lancaster area who you could work with to sell your home, you can spend a lot of time finding an agent who meets your specific needs. You’ll want to find an agent who is knowledgeable about the specific neighborhood you are working in, has experience listing and selling properties similar to yours, and who is trustworthy and able to give you a fair value for your home.
Picking the right agent is essential to a traditional real estate sale because this person will be the primary individual in charge of putting your home on the market and getting you the maximum value for your home. You’ll also be paying your realtor a commission on the sale of your home, so you’ll want to make sure you’re working with an agent who is committed to you.
2. Making Necessary Repairs
A second major way working with an agent can cost you a lot of time is in making repairs on your Lancaster home.
Before offering your home for sale on the real estate market, your agent will likely recommend or require you to make repairs on your home. This can be anything from updating dated carpeting and flooring to making electrical safety upgrades and plumbing improvements. Depending on your home and the type of work that needs to be done, these repairs may even be required for the home to pass inspection by a potential buyer.
While an important part of a finished home, these improvements can cost you a lot of time as you hire professionals to make significant changes to your home. In some cases, you’ll need to budget for weeks or even months before your Lancaster house is ready for sale, not to mention the amount of money you could have to spend on house repairs.
Alternatively, if waiting for home repairs doesn’t fit your timeline to move out of your home, you could avoid paying for the work yourself by selling your home directly in as-is condition.
3. Showing Your Home
Home showings are one of the more obvious ways working with a real estate agent could cost you a significant amount of time.
Home showings are a nice way for potential buyers to view a property, as questions of a realtor, and consider if a residence is right for them. When selling your Lancaster home, home showings can be offered by your own realtor or a realtor working with a potential buyer. Your realtor can also offer an open house to show the property to interested parties on a more informal basis.
Open houses and house showings can be especially time-consuming if you are still living in your home. You’ll have to work around your realtor’s schedule and your own schedule, not to mention those of your potential buyers and their realtor.
Your realtor will want to show your home in the best possible light, so you’ll need to have the house cleaned and arranged in an appealing way before the showing. You’ll also need to be out of the house for the duration of the showing, which could disrupt your schedule. If you have multiple showings, you may need to go through the process several times.
On the other hand, a direct sale avoids the process of showing your home and allows you to move on a schedule you decide.
4. Waiting for a Sale
Waiting for your Lancaster house to sell on the market is another way working with a real estate agent could cost you a huge amount of time.
Although it’s true that in today’s market many people have been able to sell their homes quickly through a real estate agent, not every home sells quickly. In fact, the longer a home remains on the market, the less likely it is to sell without a reduction in price.
Many eager sellers list their houses with an agent, only to be dismayed when the property lingers for weeks or even months on the real estate market. Ultimately, they may have to decide whether to accept an offer for a significantly lower price on a home or to take their residence off the market for a period. Sellers who take their homes off the market sometimes re-list later, often with a different agent at a notably lower asking price.
If you want to sell your home quickly, listing with an agent and allowing your Lancaster home sit for months on the market could end up being one of the longest waits of your life.
5. Closing
A fifth way selling your home with the assistance of a traditional real estate agent can be time-consuming is in the process of closing on a home.
Depending on your situation and a buyer’s terms of offer, it can take weeks to reach the closing date on your home. While this waiting period is partly determined by the legal process, it’s not uncommon to see long waiting periods leading up to closing day, costing you valuable time when you should be settling into your new home.
One way to expedite the closing date of your home is to consider a direct sale. Working with a direct sale buyer like Awakened Properties LLC allows you to close in as little as 14 days.
Save Time and Sell Directly
While working with a real estate agent is a time-tested way to sell your Lancaster home, the process of finding an agent, making repairs, showing your home, waiting for a sale, and closing could wind up taking you far more time than you realize.
If you’re motivated to sell your Lancaster home quickly, you should know that working with a traditional real estate agency is not your only option.
One easy way to sell your house right away and save weeks or even months of time is through working directly with a reputable, local home buyer such as Awakened Properties LLC.
Awakened Properties LLC is a trusted, local company that can buy your home directly and close in as few as 14 days. When selling your home directly, you won’t be responsible for repairs on your home, and you won’t have to wait to find a buyer.
Awakened Properties LLC can work with your schedule to settle on a closing date you choose while giving you the maximum value for your property. To find out more if Awakened Properties LLC is right for you, contact us by filling out our form below or calling (717) 925-7465.