Can You Real Sell Your House in 7 Days? If So, To Who?

Can you sell your house in seven days?

Yes.

Should you sell your house in seven days?

Maybe.

Should you try to sell your house in seven days? That depends.

How should you go about trying to sell in seven days? That’s what we’re going to discuss here.

The average home sale in the US takes 68 days, according to Zillow. If you assume it takes 30 days from offer acceptance to close – also the average – that means that homes are usually actively being marketed, shown and analyzed by potential buyers for 38 days, a little over a month. So how do some people cut this time so drastically? What corners are they cutting? What are they missing out on? And can the seller possibly get a good deal in seven days?

These are all reasonable questions that are asked often by people who need to sell their home as fast as possible. And they deserve to be answered. Let’s take a look at the answers to some of the biggest of them.

Can You Sell Your Home in a Week With a Realtor?

In a very hot real estate market, a home may sell in the traditional way – ie, with the help of a Realtor – within a week. But does it really?

It takes a lot to prepare the average home for the market, even if that market is a ‘seller’s market’. A real estate agent will advise that, in order to get the asking price they recommend, the home should be repaired, restored, thoroughly cleaned and perhaps even staged. These things are even more important when a home is being sold in a housing market considered average – where it can take over a month to sell.

So selling a home in seven days via realtor is very, very unlikely

Can You Sell Your Home in Seven Days By Yourself?

There’s a bit of a shift going on right now in the way residential real estate is being marketed and sold. FSBO – for sale by owner – has always been something home sellers were interested in as many balked at the up to 6% of a final sales price they would have to pay to a real estate agent.

For years however, FSBO was very difficult and most who tried to sell their home this way met with little success and ended up working with a Realtor in the end anyway. Home selling is harder than most people think – from setting the best asking price, to showing, to coping with all the post offer legalities – it really is too much for most people to handle alone.

Recently however websites like Zillow and Redfin have encouraged sellers to ‘do it alone’, but with their help. These offerings are not quite as they seem though. For example, selling your home with Zillow ‘FSBO’ merely means that they offer some online marketing via their platform and possibly list your home on the MLS via third party services. You still have to do most of the hard work yourself. Redfin on the other hand will ‘partner’ you with a local agent, but you can do that all by yourself, so there may be fewer advantages here.

So can you sell in seven days this way? Most likely not.

Should You Take an ‘Instant Offer’ To Sell Your Home in 7 Days?

Zillow is one of a handful of larger online companies that are moving into the instant offer space. They now have a large section on their website that encourages browsing sellers to enter their information and receive an instant offer for Zillow to buy their home. Other sites like Haus offer something similar too.

There are several things these banner ads don’t mention up front though. Currently, Zillow can only make offers to homeowners in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Texas, as those are the only places they, as a company, are licensed to do so. Haus is a little more far reaching, they can manage New York as well. But for many these companies, making an “instant offer” on homes in New Jersey (Morris County more specifically) is an option.

Then there is your home itself. Zillow is a corporation looking to make money. They are not Realtors, or real estate investors, so if they will buy a home they typically want it to be in great condition so it can be sold quickly.

If a person needs to sell a house in seven days it is usually because there are other big things going on in their life. A divorce. A bankruptcy. A need to relocate fast for work. They often haven’t had the time – or money – to get their home into tip-top sale condition, and it may even be in a state of disrepair (total knockdown), so it’s unlikely that Zillow or similar companies will be interested in making a fair cash offer.

And then there is plenty of fine print. These companies take a commission, just like a real estate agent. They will also deduct the cost of any repairs they feel need to be made from the price paid. And considering that they state you’ll receive an initial offer ‘in a few days’ seven days to a sale does not seem possible.

Then there are local home buyers like RESP. We can make a fair offer on your property quickly. If the offer is accepted, we can order title and schedule a closing date that works for you. At RESP, we can take the time to actually speak to sellers to understand their unique personal situations, and more about their home. We’ll make an offer that provides a win win scenario for both parties. No matter what condition the home is in. We won’t ask you to stage the property and we won’t charge you a commission. Just a fair offer on your New Jersey home.

Contact us today, we’re here to help!