When you’re selling your home, it’s natural to want to make the sale as quickly as possible, with the smallest possible amount of stress. For that reason, some sellers today are opting to work with an iBuyer, an organization, investor or program that will buy your home without taking the traditional steps to list or sell your home. The process is designed to be painless and yield cash in hand to the seller as quickly as possible.

Most home sellers, however, are not fully aware of the pros and cons of iBuying, and may choose to go that route when it’s ultimately not in their best interest. Here are a few pros and cons of iBuying to give you a better understanding of what’s involved.

Pros

• An iBuyer will purchase your home outright, with the intent to resell it. So iBuying significantly reduces the time your home would otherwise spend on the market.

• iBuying removes a lot of the steps sellers often view as a hassle. Since your home is not listed on the market, there’s no need to declutter or stage your home, or vacate the house every time there’s a showing or open house.

• Since your home is being bought by the iBuyer, you’ll receive cash in hand relatively quickly. 

• If you have an urgent reason for moving or perhaps are dealing with selling a home out of state, iBuying can be a helpful option.

Cons

• iBuying usually means you’ll get a lower price for your home, since the listing price is purely determined by an AVM (automated valuation model), as opposed to a real estate professional who will take many factors into consideration to price your home, and will market it to get the maximum price.

• Fees are generally higher with an iBuyer

• Accepting a lower price for your home can be a big hit on the return on your investment, so you’ll need to be prepared to sacrifice some equity.

• Working with an iBuyer means that you won’t have a chance to enhance, stage or improve your home to potentially garner a higher price.

Bottom line, if you’re considering working with an iBuyer to sell your home, schedule a FREE 15 min. consult with our office to get all the facts before making a decision. Most importantly, find out the difference between what your home could sell for when professionally listed and marketed versus the price you’d get from the iBuyer; then decide whether you’re willing to live with the difference.