4 Priorities to Consider When Selling Your Home

Selling a home can be a stressful and time-consuming process, and one that could cost you a lot of money if you aren’t careful. If you want to streamline the process as much as possible, and walk away with the best-case scenario, it’s important to evaluate and decide on your goals well in advance.

The trouble is, most people don’t even know which priorities they should be considering; they don’t know which goals to set.

Options for Selling a Home

When selling a home, you’ll have a variety of options. For example:

• Will you sell directly or work with an agent? Many people try to work with a real estate agent so they can list the property and sell it as quickly as possible for the highest price possible, but this often takes months, and will leave you paying an expensive commission. It may be better to sell your house directly to an investor, getting an offer in cash and ending the process simply and quickly.
• What price will you set for your home? Obviously, selling your home for a higher price would be nice, but there are drawbacks to this decision. A higher price usually means the home will take longer to sell.
• How much work are you going to put in? Chances are, your home isn’t perfect. There will be dozens of little flaws in need of repair and attention. But are you willing to put in the effort to correct these before the home sale?

Priorities to Consider When Selling a Home

Accordingly, before you decide on a specific strategy for how to sell your home, you should consider your main priorities. These are some of the most common and most important priorities to think about:

1. Profitability/sale price. Your biggest priority may be the profitability of the deal. In this scenario, you’ll push for a higher sale price even if it means investing more time and energy into the sale. For example, if you bought the house for $200,000, you may try to get at least $220,000 out of it, even if it means waiting a few extra months for the deal to close.
2. Time to complete sale. You may also want to close the sale as quickly as possible. If you need to finish this deal before making a down payment on a new house, or if you just want the process to be over quickly and painlessly, you may optimize for speed. It often takes between 65 and 93 days to sell a home, but you may want a deal even faster.
3. Deal complexity. Sometimes, deals can be complex (and downright annoying) to manage. If you’re stuck waiting for a buyer to get financing, or if you have to deal with buyer contingencies, it can complicate the entire process. Sometimes, the simpler deal is the better one—even if it comes with a lower sale price.
4. Personal effort. How much time, money, and effort are you willing to spend to get this property sold? Are you willing to spend time cleaning and staging the home, or would you rather just get things over with?

Tips for Solidifying Your Priorities

You may find it difficult to determine exactly what your priorities are, so use these tips to help:

• Figure out why you’re selling. Are you hoping to move to a bigger house? Are you just trying to get rid of a property you inherited? Are you trying to minimize your responsibilities and time requirements? Identifying your motivation can be illuminating.
• Conduct a personal finance audit. Next, take a look at your budget and evaluate your personal finances. How are you currently performing? How much of an impact could this property sale make? What are your short-term and long-term financial goals?
• Think about your deadlines. Are there any deadlines you’re currently facing? For example, are you starting a new job in a new city on a certain date, and do you need to finish moving by then?
• Talk to your family and friends. Don’t do this alone. Talk to your family and friends about your priorities, and about the home selling options you’re considering. They may be able to provide some additional insights.
• Talk to experts. And of course, consider talking to real estate experts on this matter. They can provide you with even more informed guidance.

There are no right or wrong answers for what your priorities are as a homeowner. For some people, selling a home as quickly as possible is the ultimate goal, and all other priorities are secondary. For others, profitability is the bottom line, and almost every other priority can fall by the wayside to achieve it. Only you can decide what’s best for your home sale strategy.