Selling real estate is always tricky. Selling a house during a divorce can feel like a cruel and unusual punishment. Whether you live in one of the many community property states or you're the sole owner of your former marital home, there are tons of nuances to navigate in the real estate market. And when your life is in a state of flux, you just want your sale to go smoothly and bring you as much money as possible.
In this post we'll give you three crucial tips for having a successful home sale in the midst (or immediate aftermath) of divorce proceedings. We'll show you how to boost your net proceeds and make your sale quick and easy. There's definitely one person you'll need in your corner -- HINT: it's not a real estate attorney or legal professional. Read on to learn more.
Avoid a Fire Sale
The first thing you must do is avoid rushing your home sale. (There's an important distinction between moving quickly and rushing).
We get it, you're already tired and exhausted from the divorce process -- and you just want the money. But if you rush the home sale process now, you may regret it for the rest of your life. Your house is your most valuable asset, so when you sell it you'll want to capture its full, fair market value. You future financial health and freedom depends on it.
Years from now, you don't want to look back and wish you hadn't rushed to dump your family home. Who wouldn't want to capture as much value for their property as possible?
Here's the dirty secret about most folks who approach you to "help" during the divorce process. They're predators.
There are many unscrupulous people out there who see someone going through a difficult period and look to prey on them. Unfortunately, real estate is no different. The majority of cash buyer programs and discount services are trying to take advantage of home sellers in precarious circumstances. Their business model is based on distressed assets acquired rapidly (aka they lowball you for your home with upfront cash in order to expedite your sale), that they can turn around simply. Basically, they end up instantly reselling your property for a nice profit.
Pretty gross, right?
Don't give those speculators the satisfaction of pocketing money that should be going into your account. Remember, the goal is selling a house, not giving away a house. Our next tip will help you do just that.
Trust Data, Not Emotion
At an emotional time, one of the best strategies you can use is to do everything in your power to remove emotion from the situation.
Of course, always easier said than done. There's an abundance of unavoidable sentiment attached to divorce settlement proceedings, communications with the other spouse (as well as family), and more.
The easiest way to prevent yourself from anchoring emotion to your real estate transaction is to replace feelings with objective data.
You need to stop thinking about your family home in terms of the memories made there, ignore all the vivid images in your head, and begin to think about it in terms of numbers on a spreadsheet. Start by listing out and calculating all the factors that will affect your bottom line in a marital property sale.
The Macro Factors
How much could it realistically command in the real estate market?
How quickly do you need it to enter escrow?
Property Dispute or Spousal Circumstances
Are you in a community property state or equitable distribution state (is it a 50/50 split or does one spouse "own" more of the house than the other)?
Will you need to pay a divorce attorney additional fees to advocate for a greater portion of home equity?
Hidden Costs
What implications do you need to consider in regards to property taxes?
What about capital gains taxes?
Do you have outstanding mortgage payments?
Once you begin to conceptualize your property as the asset it is, you position yourself to capture maximum value for it. But there's one more massive step you can take to help.
Offload Responsibility to Capable Help
The absolute smartest thing you can do when you're selling a house during a divorce? Get the best help you can find, and let them take all the responsibility off your plate entirely.
Divorce proceedings and their fallout will exhaust all your energy. An experienced real estate agent can drastically alleviate the stress in your life by handling all aspects of your home sale.
There's a misconception that a real estate agent is just another useless party to pay out during a divorce -- and it's true they don't work for free -- but the value a true real estate professional brings is tremendous.
Not only can a top real estate agent handle all of the key functions of the selling process (from setting a listing price to finding potential buyers to putting you in the hands of a cost-effective escrow company); they can also literally help you make the most money from your sale.
Statistics show that using top real estate agents results in a higher final sale price, which more than offsets any commission you'd have to pay them.
It's a no-brainer. Hire a real estate agent, let them do all the work, and let them make you even more money in your sale.
If you want to find the best agents in your neighborhood to sell your home, TrueParity was built to help you do just that.
TrueParity is an online platform that finds the best agents in every area, verifies them with real performance data, and brings them all to a single place to compete for your listing. It's fast, easy, and free for homeowners.
If you're going through a divorce, selling a house can be a major source of unnecessary stress and financial drain. TrueParity makes all of that go away, and helps every dollar go into your bank account.
