Looking to sell your Westford house sometime soon? It could be an eye-opening experience for you when you break down all of the holding costs you’ll have when selling your house with a Westford real estate agent. Although many homeowners will choose to sell in this way, your specific circumstances may make this option a very costly mistake.
Holding On Creates Pain (& Bills!)
One of the easiest expenses to forget about is how long it takes for your house to be sold. Sometimes this could be because your asking price is too high and that would cause you to lose money in the long run. Or your home maybe isn’t in as good of shape as the other properties in your Westford neighborhood or perhaps it’s out of style with what choosy buyers are looking for on today’s real estate market. Expenses add up quick quickly when your listing sits on the market for an extended period of time and it becomes less attractive to potential buyers every and every day that it stays unsold.
A second reason holding costs will continue to pile up may be that your buyer backed out of the deal after weeks of waiting. This happens more often than you may realize. The most common reason a buyer backs out of their agreement to buy your house is that their bank rejected them for a loan. Almost all agreements you sign with a house buyer contain a financing contingency that gives them the legal right to back out of the agreement if they don’t secure financing. This can be doubly painful to your wallet should you have already relocated to new living quarters because you were counting on the deal closing by a certain time.
Your Monthly Overhead Just Won’t Stop
It’s important to keep in mind that while your house is up for sale all the way through the day of closing, you continue to pay all the costs of owning the property. These include property taxes, maintenance, utility bills, heating—the list goes on. A real estate agent may give you an average number of days that a house will take to sell but that is never written in stone. The agents don’t have a crystal ball and never will pretend that they can tell you exactly how long it’ll be before your house is sold. As a result this is an open-ended contract you have with the real estate agent and it can last many months. If you’re closing holding costs are hig,h the amount of profit you walk away with in the end continues to decrease every day that passes.
Keeping Your Insurance
Obviously, every property has to be insured to protect it from fire and other calamities. This is an important holding cost you face when selling your house with the Westford real estate agent. It certainly isn’t a risk worth the risk of saving money by not having insurance and even if you were that careless, virtually all lenders require a homeowner’s insurance policy remain in place at all times. In addition, you might have to pay for PMI mortgage insurance if you still owe a loan balance of more than 80 percent on your mortgage note.
Taxes Also Continue
Property taxes wait for no one and they will continue to add up while your Westford house is listed and waiting to be sold. You can easily determine your monthly tax costs by dividing the annual bill amount by 12. Property taxes will be prorated up until the very day your house is finally sold, and they are included in your closing costs that are deducted from your sale proceeds. This is yet another expense in the breakdown of the holding costs you will face when selling your house with a Westford real estate agent.
Keep Paying Your House Payments
Much like taxes, your monthly mortgage payment does not wait and you can’t eliminate paying for it until the day that the house is sold to somebody else. When calculating your holding costs during selling, you have to add these payments into the total deductions.
Are Any Repairs Sitting Unnoticed?
Repairs are perhaps the trickiest of all the holding costs to calculate when selling a Westford house. The reason for this is that new repairs may become needed at any given time. If the weather is hot for example perhaps you end up having to make a roof repair that you didn’t expect or in the cold weather a pipe burst causing some water problems. If your home is more than 15 years old, repairs can become an increasing expense every month that passes. And the money you spend to keep the home in good repair ends up diminishing the amount of cash you receive at the closing.
You have to also keep in mind that your house buyer will expect to have a complete and thorough property inspection performed by a qualified inspector they hire. It goes without saying that these inspectors get paid for finding problems so you should expect your buyers to ask for concessions from you once the inspection has been completed. All of the repair costs you agree to perform have to be deducted from the money you receive at closing.
Upkeep
Maintenance may also include simple things like cleaning, and making sure rugs and floors are spotless so that when potential buyers parade through your home everything looks its best. Maintenance and cleaning have to be ongoing, particularly if you’re hoping to attract the best buyers. If you’ve already moved before your Westford house is sold, you’re going to have to add travel expenses or pay someone else to help monitor the condition of your property and keep it in order until it gets sold.
Conclusion
When you look at each of these costs and add them together the amount, that you will pay while your house is waiting to be sold on the MLS can become a very big number. For example, let’s say your mortgage is $2,100 per month, your property taxes are $450 per month, and your insurance is $140 per month. Then add in 10% for maintenance and repairs and your monthly costs are over $3,000! If it takes five months for your house to sell that’s $15,000 that you will not get back when the house is finally sold.
There is an alternative way to sell your Westford house to consider—why not speak with Summit Buys Houses instead? We might help save you the time, effort, and all the hassle of listing your house because we offer you a quick and guaranteed closing date. Our Profit-Lock offer never changes once you accept it and you tell us when will be the best time to close. If you’re ready to close in 10 days so are we. On the other hand if you want to wait three months we are perfectly happy to wait. And remember, we’re buying your house “as-is” so repairs and maintenance are no longer an expense or worry for you!
So give us a call today. There’s never any obligation to accept our offer. We’re in your Westford neighborhood and we treat you like a neighbor. There are never any high-pressure tactics from us—just friendly advice and a written cash offer to buy your Westford house no matter what condition it is in.
Why wait any longer to find out? It is free and there’s never any obligation or pressure to accept. Call (978) 254-3800 today or send us a message to learn how we can help you!
We are legitimate and experienced home buyers in Westford, Massachusetts. We buy property from owners just like you all over the state in cities and towns like Lowell, Woburn, Fitchburg, and Burlington. When it’s time to sell your home anywhere in the Middlesex, Essex and Worcester counties of Massachusetts—contact us for a quick, confidential, no-obligation cash offer and the best, no-pressure advice.