Don’t Trade Your Home Equity for Easy
With soaring Cincinnati area home prices in recent years, unless you’ve owned your home a very short time, you most likely have significant equity in your home.
When you have reason to move, it’s time to turn that equity into cash in your pocket.
However, if you’re not aware of your home’s worth, you may find yourself giving away significant dollars for the sake of convenience.
We’re homeowners and own some vacant land out of state. We regularly receive mailings and calls offering to buy our home or our lot.
The one consistent thing?
Not a single one of these offers are even close to offering true value, typically offering 50% or less of what we paid for our land a few short years ago, and the land has appreciated significantly since then.
While the offers tout quick closings with cash buyers and they’ll pay all the closing costs, and oh, by the way, we don’t need real estate agents and their fees!!
Sounds appealing right?
But their definition of market value isn’t anywhere near what you’d receive when fully marketed by a real estate agent, even AFTER you deduct agent fees and other typical closing costs.
I recently showed a patio home in a 55+ community The home was fairly priced at just over $400,000, but when you check the sales record, just a few short months the original owner transfered the home for $284,000 to a “we buy homes for cash” company. The seller might have thought he was getting a great deal since he was gaining $60,000 above his original purchase price, but the reality is his home was worth MUCH, MUCH more than he was told. Literally this seller should have netted at least $100,000 more than he did.
Before you sell your home for what you THINK is a fair market value, get a professional appraiser or a real estate agent to provide you an estimated value for your home.
Please, please, don’t trade your equity for convenience.
Find out your home’s value and make a fully informed decision. Selling to a cash buyer company may make the most sense to you, but at least know the trade you’re making for convenience.
