What It Takes to Sell a Home Quickly (Or… How We Sold Ours Without Ever Listing It!)

by Miranda Marquit · 1 comment

One of the bits of luck that accompanied my family on our recent cross-country move was that we sold our house quickly. In fact, it was under contract before we even listed it. However, selling your home quickly isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be; sometimes it means taking a loss.

Here’s what you need to know about selling your home in a speedy fashion.

Figure Out Why You’re Selling Quickly

The first thing you need to do is evaluate why you want to sell your home quickly. In our case, we were moving in a relatively short period of time. We didn’t want to worry about dealing with the house after moving, so we were willing to do whatever we could to make it happen.

Work with a Real Estate Agent

Our real estate agent was the main reason our home sold so quickly. After meeting with her, we thought we’d wait a couple weeks before putting it on the market.

However, a buyer was interested in our neighborhood, so she contacted me to ask if they could look — even though we weren’t quite ready. She set it up as an “insider preview,” and the buyer loved our upgrades and made an offer that very day.

We countered, and they accepted. Within three days, we were were under contract — without ever listing the house!

Realize You Might Have to Pay

Of course, you can sell your home quickly by making sure your home is well-priced and attractive to buyers. But if you really want to get the deal done, you might need to pay money out-of-pocket.

Even though our home wasn’t under water, by the time we paid the closing costs and the agent’s commission, we had to come up with $8,000 of our own money. We decided we could handle up to $12,000 to make this deal work — so, while it wasn’t ideal, it was our best option.

Though selling a home quickly is rarely a situation that works out perfectly for the seller, it can be done; but if you’re not willing to do what it takes to close the deal, you might be out of luck.

Have you ever tried to sell a home quickly? How’d it go?

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  • Lance @ Healthy Wealthy Income says:

    Not so well and it was my fault. I tried to haggle for every last penny only to not realize I was losing in the long run by continuing to pay the mortgage. Yes, I got $2,000 extra in the end for the price I wanted but I ended up losing all of it by paying the mortgage a few times. We still made a killing on the house, but it was not wise to hassle over small amounts. Live and learn.

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