When it comes to sell your house in Los Angeles, there’s no shortage of options to do so.
You can go the super traditional and proven way of “listing it with an agent on the mls” (as you might have heard), which ultimately means, to hire a professional and reputable Real Estate Agent to list or promote your house in what’s commonly called “The mls” which is short for “Multiple Listing Service”.
The mls is a huge website where all real estate agents are connected to and constantly looking for properties for sale by other real estate agents. Roughly, over 95% of the houses are sold through this route.
Listing your house for sale with an agent to place it on the mls, though is the most common way to sell a property, it also presents some drawbacks for someone who really doesn’t have the time, money or patience to go through that route.
Why?
Because by hiring an agent (which by the way it doesn’t cost any upfront money to hire a real estate agent, since they get paid if and when the property sells) requires that you listen to your agent’s suggestions as to how to maximize the exposure of your house, usually by making some kind of improvements to it: they can be as simple as just adding some decorations and making it look prettier or could be as costly as to having to paint it, fix some broken stuff, patch some walls or even replace the appliances to make the house look more modern.
Obviously, this is not easy or cheap to do, so many homeowners will be discouraged or will not be able to do that, in that case, their house will not sell for top Dollar on the mls and it will take longer to find a suitable buyer.
Also, by hiring an agent, you will have to be open to give access to prospective buyers to come in and out of your house when your agent performs what’s called “Open Houses”, where house buyers will be walking through your property, looking at every room. Unfortunately for some people that might feel a little bit of an invasion of privacy, having strangers going through your living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom while they can see your personal belongings.
Because Open Houses usually are performed during the weekends, if you can’t find an interested buyer the first weekend, you’ll have to wait to your second open house to go through it all over again and see if a new suitable candidate likes what you have, if not, another weekend is spent waiting to find the right house buyer. It is not uncommon for this process to take between 8 to 16 weeks to finally find an interested buyer.
You found an interested house buyer! Now what?
Now that you found an interested buyer and they presented an offer, if they don’t have the cash to close on the property, they’ll have to go and ask for a loan or mortgage to get approved to pay for your house.
Usually that process could be relatively quickly (say about 30 to 45 days) if your buyers have good credit and all their paperwork in order.
If not, it can take up to 60 days or longer to get them approved for a loan.
In the mean time your house is still sitting on the market and if your real estate agent is proactive enough, you’ll still be doing open houses … so about 8 more weekends (or 16 more days of strangers coming and going).
Again, if you have the time, money and patience to go through that process, then it’s the best route to get your house sold for top dollars.
But wait … you now have to pay your real estate agent and the buyer’s agent as well, not to mention, escrow, title and other sort of closing fees.
So that “top dollar sale” doesn’t look so high anymore when you discount all the fees, fixes or improvements you did to present the house well and the real estate agent’s commissions … Don’t forget if you still have a mortgage on the house you’re selling, you still have to make those payments until the house is sold and escrow has closed.
What happens if you sell to professional house buyers instead?
First, you might not get top dollar for the sale of the house, but it can happen as fast as in a couple of weeks! Also, there’s not going to be endless open houses, just once to go and view the property in person and maybe a second time to bring a contractor or partner to see what kind of repairs the property will need.
Also, professional house buyers in Los Angeles, don’t charge for commissions, since they’re not acting as listing Real Estate Agents and some may won’t even charge you closing costs, since they’ll pay them directly to the escrow company once the transaction closes immediately.
If you do the math, sometimes is a very simple proposition to go through the most popular route of listing it on the mls or selling to house buyers los angeles:
| 3 Months | 6 Months | House Buyers Los Angeles | |
| MLS List Price | $500,000 | $500,000 | N/A |
| Mortgage Payment | $6,000 | $12,000 | $0 |
| Insurance | $450 | $900 | $0 |
| Improvements/Repairs | $7,500 | $7,500 | $0 |
| Agents Fees + Closing Costs | $41,250 | $41,250 | $0 |
| Cost to list MLS | ($55,200) | ($61,650) | $0 |
| Effective Sale Price | $444,800 | $438,350 | $460,000 |
If you want to skip the open houses, time and aggravation of updating, preparing for open houses and ultimately keeping more cash in your pocket … we get it. At Green Sur Properties, we help home sellers sell their properties quickly for a fair cash price. We pay all closing costs and we can close in as little as two weeks. We are house buyers, give us a call or text at (323) 990-3922 to learn more!
