Selling your house is something you’ll have to do maybe just a few times in your life. And unless you know a local Cincinnati real estate agent who will help you through the process, it could be a headache.
So… you landed on this page about “How to sell your house by yourself in Cincinnati OH” for a few possibilities
- You have no or very little equity in your house so you can’t afford to pay a real estate agents commissions
- You have equity but want to try to save money – it’s a hot market, so you don’t want to pay an agent the fees
- You’re in foreclosure (or heading that way) and just need to sell fast without incurring thousands in agent commissions
- You can’t wait the months and months for a house to get listed and closed because you need to move NOW
Whether it’s one of the issues above or something else, there are options to sell your house yourself here in the local Cincinnati real estate market.
Since 2013, the housing sector has been experiencing a major recovery. In the last 2 years in Cincinnati, the market has jumped approximately 25%. If you know what you’re doing, you may be able to make some money selling your house. In most cases, it is about using smart marketing strategies and being realistic about your expectations on what you want to achieve with this sale.
This article will provide some guidelines to help you sell your Cincinnati area house yourself.
How To Sell Your House By Yourself In Cincinnati OH – Let’s Dive In
Know The Cincinnati Real Estate Market Well
The first and most important step is doing a market research on your neighborhood in the Cincinnati OH area. This step involves visiting various home marketing sites (Zillow, Eppraisal the Money Task Force guide, etc), calling a real estate agent or two to see what your home is worth, or reading about the various market pricing techniques. Often, the best route is to call an agent. Zillow provides an Zestimate that is often not accurate, but a good agent can help you with a solid valuation and provide you with a CMA.
If you don’t want to hassle with trying to come up with a home value yourself… give us a call at (859) 412-1940 and we’ll give you an honest fair valuation of what your house is worth on the retail market (if you’re going to wait the 3-6+ months to find the perfect retail buyer). And if you want to wait, we’ll make you a free, no obligation cash offer. We always sit down with our clients and give them multiple options. Sell fast now for cash. Or, put it on the market and possibly sell for more. You decide.
Evaluate the market
This step is almost similar to conducting market research, only that in this case, you are bound to your neighborhood and similar houses. Are there lots of houses for sale in your neighborhood here in Cincinnati? If so, what is the average that they are listing for? Are there lots of foreclosures in your neighborhood? That may drag your house price down.
Evaluate the house
As a seller, your house should be in top condition or shape in order to sell at a good price. Identify certain unique characteristics about it and emphasize them during the marketing. For example, in a Cincinnati, a house with a drive way parking may be more attractive to buyers compared with one with a garage parking.
Also, does your house require repairs? Does it need to be repainted inside or out? How is the condition of the roof? Is the landscaping in good shape? Is the house outdated at all? (you know, those popcorn ceilings ;-). All of these things can make the house more attractive or less attractive depending on the buyer… which changes the price they’re willing to pay.
After all of this… come up with an asking price for your Cincinnati home that is fair… isn’t so high it’ll take you 12 months to sell the house… but is attractive so you get a frenzy of buyers who are ready to buy it quickly.
Use Photos or Videos
Cincinnati buyers are obsessed with media. Taking walk-through videos of the house and using the videos to advertise will enable you to reach a wider market. In fact, these videos are considered more transparent than taking photos. However, this should not stop you from using the latter option since it is more affordable compared to the video.
So take some great pictures. Take a picture of every room in the house that helps show it off. Take a picture of the house from the outside in a few different angles… people want to see the house before they ever show up to see it. So having great pictures of your house online could be the difference between getting the right buyer quickly… and waiting months and months to sell.
Get Your House “Listed” On The Local Cincinnati MLS And Market It
You can find no or low fee real estate brokers these days who will charge you a few hundred bucks to put your house on the local Cincinnati MLS. This gets your house in front of all of the real estate agents quickly (so be prepared to pay those “buyers” agents a 2-3% buyers broker fee if you plan to have their support in helping you find a buyer.
Place ads in the local newspaper, signs on the roads, and hold an open house.
All Of This Sound Like A Lot Of Work To Sell Your Cincinnati House Fast Yourself?
It can be.
And in the end, many Cincinnati house sellers think they’re saving money and time by marketing the house themselves… when in the end it costs them more money to go that route.
When you sell your own house here are some things you need to consider…
- If you’re not a good marketer or aren’t ready to spend a bunch of time marketing your house right… selling it yourself may not be your best bet
- If you don’t do a good job preparing the house and the marketing materials… and working with buyers to really build the value of your house in their minds… you may actually sell the house for 3-8% less than you may get for the same house an experienced person marketed the house for you
- Too many sellers never think about holding costs or opportunity costs… every month that your house doesn’t sell means another mortgage payment, tax payment, insurance, utilities, etc. If your mortgage payment is $1,500/mo… and $1,300 of that is interest… if it takes you 7 months to sell your house… that cost you an extra $9,100 (not to mention taxes and insurance you paid during that time). So, if you were able to sell that house more quickly… would it make sense for you to provide a buyer a discounted price today so you can close quickly and move on? Something to think about.
If you’d rather not put up the hassle of trying to sell your Cincinnati house yourself… and would rather just sell it quickly for a fair price without paying any commissions or fees…
… here at We Buy NKY Houses we actually buy local Cincinnati OH houses.
We’d love to make you a fair, NO OBLIGATION and NO HASSLE cash offer on your house.
We can close quickly (in as little as 7 days if you wanted to)… which would save you thousands of dollars vs. trying to sell the house yourself and waiting for months.
Also, when we buy local Cincinnati houses we do all repairs that are needed (we pay for it ourselves) so you don’t have to worry about that.
If you want to see what we can pay for your house, give us a call today at (859) 412-1940 or just fill out the quick simple form through the link below.