If you’re selling a home, have you thought about the cost of waiting for it to sell?
If it’s your only home, the cost of waiting is the difference between your current home’s monthly expenses and your new home’s monthly expenses.
If it’s a second home, it’s just the cost of the current home’s expenses.
To make the math easy, let’s say you’re selling a second home with monthly expenses like this:
• $500 Association Fee or Maintenance
• $200 Property Taxes
• $100 Electricity
• $700 Mortgage Payment (interest portion only)
That means if you keep the house around, the costs add up to $1,500 each month. If you sell it, all those costs drop to $0.
Now let’s say you’re deciding on the sale price of your home without the help of a professional. If you set the price too high, and it takes 5 months to sell, the effect is the same as setting the price $6,000 lower and selling it in 1 month, because 5 minus 1 is 4 months, and 4 months times $1,500 is $6,000. (Not to mention the aggravation you’ll save yourself.)
So what should you do? Get a competitive market analysis (CMA) from someone who knows the market. Getting a CMA doesn’t mean you have to hire a real estate agent to help you sell your home; people who sell by ownercan use this information, too.
Whatever you do, don’t just guess!
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