Sometimes you need to sell your house fast. Sometimes it doesn’t matter. If you find yourself pressed for time and wondering “how long does it take to sell my house with an agent vs an investor?” then this blog post will guide you through the answer…
Do you want to sell your house fast? Are you in a hurry to sell your house? Chances are, you arrived at this blog post because you’re hoping to find the best solution for you that sells your house as quickly as YOU want.
Before you decide on an answer on whether to use an agent or an investor, it’s important to understand the difference between what an agent does and what an investor does:
When you sell your house with an agent, you are asking the agent to represent you in a sale and to try and find a buyer on your behalf. In other words, you’re selling THROUGH an agent to a buyer.
With an investor, you are actually working with the buyer of the house. You’ve already solved half the equation. In other words, if you’re selling TO an investor they are your buyer.
Now that you know the difference, what about how long it each method can take?
How Long Does It Take To Sell My House With An Agent Vs An Investor?
The Agent…
An agent needs to show your house to prospective buyers and try to convince them to buy. But also, agents and brokers co-operate with other brokers and agents. This means they share the commisson. But because of this fact, your listing agent will want your house to be in pristine condition, and then he or she and the buyers agent need to find as many prospective buyers as they can to show your house to.
Therefore, it can literally take weeks or months for you to fix up your house just to get the agent to think that it’s ready to list. And once the agent lists it, then it can take months for the agent to find buyers to show your house to, and for one of those buyers to make an offer (on average, it can take 3-6 months… sometimes as long as 12 months for this to happen). And what a lot of sellers don’t realize is: if the retail buyer can’t get financing or gets cold feet, or certain home inspection items come up, then they can back out with no penalty to them and you go through the process again. You, as the seller are “penalized” because now you’ve lost all that time and opportunity to show to other potential buyers. Furthermore, you now have paid more mortgage payments, taxes, water and sewer bills. Even if you didn’t put cash out for some of these, they will be pro-rated at closing. So you’re either paying now, or paying later.
That’s why it can take months to sell your house through an agent – it all depends on how quickly you can get your house in “showroom condition” and how quickly they can find a buyer and whether the buyer goes through with the purchase. If your house is dated, or needs repairs, you need to seriously ponder the question of is it worth fixing up and/or renovating your house only to sell it?
How Long Does It Take To Sell My House With An Agent Vs An Investor?
The Investor…
Most people don’t realize it but an investor can buy your house very fast – some investors can even buy in as little as 7-10 days if that’s what you want or need. That’s because the investor is the buyer and no showings are necessary and many investors (including us here at Beacon Realty Investments) buy houses in any condition so you don’t have to fix up the property either. We like to tell people that we can close on your timeline. The only caveat would be title. Because a lot of investors may not tell you this, but title searches do take a long time. Even if the title is “clean.”
So, should you sell through an agent or sell to an investor? That’s up to you. An investor is faster so if speed is important to you then you may want to think about selling to an investor.