I am writing this post as your friendly neighborhood realtor. I am seeing heavy advertisement from large tech firms and those representing large hedge funds to make you a "offer" on your home and a quick closing. They are showing lots of videos about how you do not have to bother with showings and being inconvenienced by contact with people to sell your property. Let me tell you.. unfortunately they are simply not being honest. As a professional I already understood their business models but I want to pull the curtain back for you.
These firms do not offer you appraised value. They start off with a lower algorithm value ( similar to less than a Zillow algorithm). They reduce that price by realtor commission. Reduce again for their closing costs. or they call it a "liquidity" fee of 8% to 16%. They will also complete an inspection on your property and reduce the property for all of their repair costs to rehabilitate your property and then give you the NET after all of these fees. This becomes your "final" offer price and if you do not accept they will cancel the sale.
In a traditional sale with a Realtor, we comb the MLS for all the recent sales and view similar property condition and types of homes and discuss what we are seeing as avg seller concession. We place your home on our open market to give you wide exposure for your property so you have the opportunity to receive the highest and best offer. The cost of sale is Realtor commission and any buyer closing cost concession.
Is it not WORTH a few people walking though your home upfront to keep thousands ( I have seen offers 10k-over 100K lower than property value being offered) in your pocket? You can use this money for so many things! This could be your money to move you to another property more comfortably or even if you went on vacation or whatever! Why give it away just because someone is telling you it is "easy"! Let me tell you! Maybe it was easy to earn money while you simply lived in your home but friends don't let friends give their hard earnest $$$ away!!
Also please think of your neighbors you leave behind.. each time a sale occurs in our neighborhood that is under value it hurts the next home owner that lists their home for sale. As a Realtor for the past 20 years I have been around to see many of the cycles I know! After the recession of 2008 we witnessed our property values plummet and snatch our properties up for little to nothing.. then the hedge funds came in and convinced the banks to simply bulk sale them all the foreclosed properties. Those hedge funds tightened the market and placed properties in their funds and watched values increase and their profits grow. The tech companies have the deep pockets and control over the algorithms to tell you from California what your property is worth sight unseen.
We are seeing our values comeback and we should be the ones to reap that benefit. If you need a free easy home valuation with no pressure.. I am happy to help you and go over all the details you may be concerned about. I have helped my clients transition from selling to purchase many times and in the recession I saved my clients homes from foreclosure or if they were ready to move on I completed hundreds of short sales.. thank you for reading :-)
